VEREENIGING

Hoovering the Roof 2

2012-01-21T21:54:00.002+01:00

Isn't that a great title? I have this wonderful image in my head whenever I think of this. The joke is that I sometimes hoover my own roof, but that's on my barge and technically, I hoover the hatch boards, not the roof.

Anyhow, why 'hoovering the roof' and why '2'? Well, it's the title of a collection of short stories written by the East Dulwich Writers' group (in London, England), one of whom is my marvellously witty friend, Sue Lanzon. She and I were at school together more years ago than either of us cares to mention, and we 'met' again through Facebook, something I am inordinately chuffed about.

Anyhow, back to the book. It is a wonderfully eclectic mix of stories, styles and tales of the unexpected. The offerings by Sue are very consistent with her sophistry (is that a word? It sounds good, anyway) and wry and sometimes spicy humour. Her stories involve homeopathy among other things - not surprisingly as she's a homeopath - but there are also stories from a variety of talented authors about murder, corporate intrigue and strange friendships. I found the whole collection great for my bed-time read. I could read one a night quite easily before dropping off over the pages (as is my wont these days) although a couple of them kept me awake rather longer than was comfortable - the tale of the man telling his story from his coffin was one such.

The short story has become a very popular genre now, and with the wealth of talent around, I can well see why. Hoovering the Roof 2 is a great example of this and it has won quite a prestigious Short Story writers award as a result. As for the 2, well you've probably already realised there is a 1 as well. Since I've always done things back to front, lets's not change a lifelong tradition...I shall now proceed to order the first edition, the cover of which would make me buy it anyway! If you like short stories, these are really enjoyable and demonstrate the creative writing talent that is out there in abundance. Thanks a million to Sue and her friends at the EDWG.

PS Buy it at the Book Depository (dot com). Free delivery can't be a bad thing these days and it saves a heap of money! Alternatively, buy it directly from the source. The EDWG's website is: http://sites.google.com/site/eastdulwichwritersgroup/

What's in a name

2012-01-08T00:56:00.001+01:00

Nearly three years ago, Mo and Craig bought their gorgeous little tjalk, the Marion Aagje. I'd seen the advertisement for it on a local 'e-bay' type site. It looked lonely and neglected at its mooring in Diemen, near Amsterdam and very much in need of some TLC. Since then, Mo and Craig have lovingly converted it into their home and lavished care, hard work and an awful lot of paint on it. Now it lies proud and serene in a harbour here in Rotterdam.

During all this time, Mo has been trying to find out more about its history. At first, this was because they wanted to restore it, and to get a restoration place here in the Oude Haven where I have the Vereeniging. However, to do this you have to have a restoration plan meaning you have to know what your ship's conformation was originally. Sadly, in spite of all Mo's skills as a researcher, the information constantly evaded them and they were unable to get a place here, so they eventually settled for not restoring the ship, but for maintaining it as it was and keeping it in a commercial harbour across the river.

Mo kept on looking, though. The little ship sort of begged for it. And then a few weeks back, she found a reference to a book written by a descendent of the Muller family who used to own the Marion Aagje. It claimed to be about the barges and boats this family - a huge tugboat business now - had owned. So without really thinking, she ordered the book and then forgot about it.

Some days ago now, I picked up a parcel for her from the post, and also forgot about it. I assumed it was a study book and as we were all on holiday, it didn't seem that important, but then two days ago, Mo and Craig dropped in for coffee and I remembered the parcel. Mo opened it to find the most beautiful volume filled with illustrations, maps and photographs of the Muller family's binnenvaart history. In some excitement, we turned to the index page to look for the name of their ship. It was there, but not quite as we'd expected. The Marion Aagje was actually called the Maria Aagje. And this was - or had been the problem all along. Two small letters in its name. The intrusive 'n', as linguistic specialists would call it, probably the result of verbal misinterpretation somewhere along the way, ensured that the legal records were accidentally changed.

With this book, the floodgates of information have opened and we are now learning more and more about the exciting and sometimes swashbuckling adventures of Mo and Craig's little barge. It was the smallest sea-going sailing barge in the Netherlands in its time, and there is a lovely story about how a skipper overlooked it in the harbour where it now lies because he was looking for a zeeschip of much larger proportions. Because of its rounded hull, it was also very fast and even won races over other, larger tjalken.

The Maria Aagje's skipper, Janus Muller, was apparently a real rogue of a character who broke laws, managed to sink the barge at one time, hid it during the war and got himself arrested for carrying illegal goods. In true piratical tradition, he even wore rags around his head and succeeded in shooting his own eye out accidentally. The little barge ploughed the seas from Zeeuws Vlaanderen to Denmark and only after around seventy five years of loyal service to the Muller family did they finally part with it in the 1950's.

Since discovering its real name Koos has posted it on a special website for people with an interest in tjalken and still more details are flowing in. It's been exciting, emotional and exhilarating, and all the more so because Mo and Craig have recently decided to sell the ship in favour of living on land. The effort is now on to find a buyer worthy of this barge with so much experience, so many stories and so much history. We all feel quite strongly it has to go to someone who will care for and do it justice. After all, now it has come to life again, it cannot simply be allowed to sink into oblivion, can it?

A few more interesting facts that tie this little barge to us all:
1. It is known to have spent time in the Binnenhaven in Rotterdam where Mo and Craig now have their mooring
2. Its first owner, Simon Muller was born in 1855, a hundred years before my birth and died in 1948, the year of Koos's birth.
3. The family Muller own a very large tugboat business, based in Dordrecht and seen daily on the waterways here in Rotterdam.
4. The Maria Aagje is noted as having been in Terneuzen, the closest sea port and just a few kilometres from our home in Zeeuws Vlaanderen.

It's no wonder we have always felt this barge was special, so now we know what's in its name.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS

2012-01-02T18:13:00.000+01:00

As always during the very first days of each new year, Koos and I went to the coast for a walk. This year, Mo and Craig were with us, as were Charlie and Sindy. It was a beautiful morning, and exceptionally mild. I have to say that if this is global warming, I'm not against it :)

The dogs had fun playing on the beach and we walked along the big sea dyke until the cold wind got to us, but then given our lack of hats, gloves and real winter gear, a bit of a chill wind was enough to send us back to the car again.

That aside, I'd like to wish all my blogging friends a very wonderful new year. There are a lot of changes afoot for us, but I'll write more about that later on. For now, may the sun shine on you metaphorically and physically the whole year long! Love to you all, Val xxx

Happy Christmas to all from Charleville Mézières

2011-12-24T22:53:00.002+01:00

I've not been a very good blogger this year. Life has got in the way of my creative output more than somewhat, and I feel sad about that. I am determined to remedy the situation next year and especially breed some more eccentrics quite a lot more often, but I do have to accept that this year's contribution to blogland has been a bit thin.

For the moment, though, I'd like to leave you with some thoughts on this last year's surprises. The biggest one for me is how very fond I've become of one particular group of students. Since September, I've been teaching Chinese students who have come to study in the Netherlands. One of these groups has become very special to me and we have 'clicked' in a way that doesn't always happen but when it does it makes up for all the stress and hard work that teaching Academic English to foreigners sometimes entails.

Yesterday, we had a little party after class as it was my last session of the year and I took in some snacks and drinks for my favourite students. The interesting - and surprising - thing is that they just seem to love Christmas and all it stands for, even though they come from a confuscian culture in which this particular festival has no real part. Maybe it is just the sheer joy of gift giving and decoration, but these students have made Christmas special for me again, and that was also a surprise.

This sweet card I received just says it all for me.

And here they all are - my very special "PCA2" group

It was quite an emotional occasion as I'll only see them for two more classes and then they will move on to their official study programme. I wish I could keep keep them all for another year!

Another unexpected thing is that I've realised the post graduate studies I'm doing myself are quite a disappointment. Earlier this year, I was awarded a Diploma in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and I thoroughly enjoyed the course, even though it was all online. I then decided to continue my studies and do my Masters through a British university. I rather expected that because it was so much more expensive, it would be of a much higher quality, but in fact it's all a bit of a let down. The work we do is mainly assessed by fellow students; there is no feedback and although we are going to be doing assignments now, the instructions are so vague and badly explained, I'm having difficulty in dealing with it. I'm even wondering if I will see it through to the final MA.

The final surprise, though, has been that of having my first published book released. I never expected this to happen this year, or to happen so quickly, but it's been quite a thrill to have the Skipper's Child taken on by Sunpenny Publishing. I am looking forward to doing some book talks and going round a few schools to promote it next year. I might even manage to get over to England for some of the same, but whatever the case, I won't let it stop me from writing...no, I won't!

Right now, Koos and I are in France. We decided to go away for Christmas this year and in fact, we are finishing off our summer holiday by visiting Charleville Mézières, the town in Champagne Ardennes that we were heading for when our van broke down in August. We only arrived this evening, so we are not sightseeing until tomorrow, and as the hotel has free Internet...well, why not blog?

The absolute last thing I want to say, then, is no surprise at all: All our very very best from Charleville Mézières. I hope you all have a very very special festive season and an absolutely fantastic 2012.

Happy Christmas from France!

While I'm busy

2011-12-06T14:12:00.002+01:00

The big and very exciting news this month is that my 'teens' or kidult (as I prefer to call it) book, The Skipper's Child is about to be released, published by Sunpenny Publishing. I'm told it will be available via various websites as of this weekend. It may take a bit longer to reach the bookshops, but it will eventually. The best deal is to order it through www.bookdepository.com as delivery is free worldwide. I'm really thrilled about that.

Still, what I'm not thrilled about is my lack of time to write anything, even a good blog post. So what I have done is put together some of the most popular posts I have done in the past and coupled them to my two children's stories and the one-off short short story (and yes I mean short short) I wrote a while back, and put them in a little volume with the grand total of 50 pages. I'm giving this as Christmas prezzies to my family. Lighthearted and nonsensical musings with something to read to the kids too.

I'll write something more meaningful soon...and I'll get on with breeding a few eccentrics, but for now, well, at least you'll know I'm still alive!

I hope all my blog friends are well and I send you much love until I can get back here properly.

Bye bye Snail

2011-10-31T22:58:00.001+01:00

This morning at eight o'clock, the sun shining brightly in defiance of our feelings, we watched the Wandering Snail lifted out of the dock at Terneuzen and onto a 'convoi exceptionnel' low loading truck. Half an hour later, it left the yard by road instead of in its natural home, the water.

The Snail is going back. Back to England where it will stay for the next year, its wandering curtailed for a while. Snail's people, Anne and Oll have been obliged to return to England for a time, so it seemed sensible to take their home back with them. After all, that's the beauty of boat life. If you move, you can take your house with you - just like a snail.

It seems an age since we first saw the Snail, and then met up with them in Zelzate, but it's only just over two years ago. That was the memorable day they towed the Hennie H back to its mooring, and we've been friends ever since.

We shall miss them. They've become very very dear to us, but we hope we can visit them in the UK before too long. They are seeing this as just a gap year, and promise to be back. I think we'll hold them to that!

Reunited in music and friendship

2011-10-20T00:42:00.002+02:00

Last weekend was magical...at least that's what my children would have said, but it really was.

On Friday evening, I flew to Bristol, picked up a nifty VW Polo and drove to the charming, gorgeous and fondly remembered village of Charmouth. on the Dorset coast. There I was greeted by my long lost school chum, the still beautiful and elegant Sarah, who has been living in Botswana for the last 35 years. She has barely changed at all.

My friend always had more than her fair share of charm, wit and humour to go with her dainty but refined loveliness. She still has it all in bucket loads, and it was just wonderful to see her again. The house in Charmouth belongs to her mother, who is an amazing (and I do mean this) 86 year old bundle of energy and dynamism. Her days put mine to shame. She rises at six, takes here (shamefully) lazy thirty-something neighbours' dogs for a walk, then bakes scones and cakes for all the visitors she has on a daily basis, not to mention anyone else she feels like giving them away to. She belongs to the choir, does flowers for the church, works as a volunteer in the Heritage centre and visits old people (!) who need comfort. I get exhausted just imagining it all.

Apart from this, she has a self contained flat beneath her house that she lets to holiday makers, and every weekend - more or less- is a changeover. Now I know where her daughter gets her boundless energy from. Sarah, herself is an early riser in Botswana. She rides every day from about 5 a.m. till late morning, when it then becomes too hot to do more. All I could think was ..wow!

But this was just the start of my weekend, which proved to be a major trip down memory lane....but more of that later. For the moment, here are a few photos of my lovely friend on my beloved Dorset coast

WHAT A SUPER MUM! I WISH I HAD HER LIFE FORCE!

Images of our Indian Summer

2011-10-09T22:52:00.000+02:00

Last weekend, it was summer. This weekend, it is most definitely autumn. I think I prefer the summer. No, not just think, I know I prefer it.

On Sunday evening, Koos took a beer and I took the remains of a bottle of wine with a glass and we sat on the bank of the canal as the sun went down. A hot air balloon was drifting overhead, and two muscular looking tug-boats were assisting a large coaster as it made its way towards the inland docklands of Ghent. The sun glowed warm even as it sank below the horizon. The sky was a clear, unbroken, cerulean blue. It was simply gorgeous. One of those 'for keeps' moments. Remembered years afterwards in nostalgic flashbacks.

I feel very fortunate at times.

Catching up again

2011-10-01T00:33:00.001+02:00

Where do I start? What do I say after all these weeks when I've hardly posted a thing but so much has happened?

Perhaps I should take one thing at a time and post as and when I can. First thing of note is that we are having a blessedly glorious Indian summer. This last week has been everything summer should have been and apparently we can expect it to continue until next Wednesday, maybe even longer. The temperature has been in the mid twenties all week, the sun has shone endlessly and it has been dry, dry, dry! Simply wonderful. I really needed this as I've felt pretty down about the lack of UV rays my body has been able to absorb this year.

The downside is that it has been an exceptionally busy month work wise, so the freedom to enjoy this marvellous tonic has been confined to cycling to work and back and walking Sindy. Still, it's done me the power of good.

Apart from that, what has happened? Well, in a nutshell, Koos's sister celebrated a big birthday (out of discretion, I won't say which one) and we were privileged to share it with her. We had a lovely day with his family as there was a surprise trip round Rotterdam's harbours by boat, followed by a very luxurious meal at one of Rotterdam's top locations. And I mean top! It was in the restaurant high up in the Euromast tower from which the view is quite literally awesome. I think Koos has published a film he made of the view on Facebook if anyone is interested and hasn't seen it.

What else? Well, I have started teaching Chinese students at the Rotterdam Business school. It is a one year assignment and I give lessons two days a week. The students are charming, but always tired, so where discipline is no problem, keeping them awake is! I have to invent all sorts of interactive activities simply to keep them busy during the three hour sessions.

The other main event has been the opening of Koos's exhibition in Hulst, Zeeuws Vlaanderen. 15 of his finest photos are being exhibited at a small arts centre in this very pretty, previously fortified, border town. Last Sunday was the first day of the exhibition and even though there was no official opening, a couple who knew Koos from long ago turned up unexpectedly because they had seen the announcement on Facebook and decided to drive the sixty odd kilometres to have a look. Nice, hey?

I'm sure there are other things I should write about, but in all honesty I am too tired to remember anything but the main events, so with that I shall leave you with a couple of pics: three of the harbour trip and one of Koos's perfect photos.

Koos's sister and husband confirming their ongoing affection for each other.

Out on a grey and windy Maas

How the big boats clean their bottoms

One of Koos's abstractions and one of my favourites. I call it industrial art

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

A video view on our world

2011-09-18T16:03:00.000+02:00

Oude Haven Rotterdam from Roesj Producties on Vimeo.

This video is about us - about those of us who live here in the Oude Haven. It was made a while ago, but the people interviewed are still here and are still our neighbours. Some of you might recognise Philip (from Watery Ways), who took his barge to France almost three years ago now. I think this interview must have been done not long after he came back.

In any event, as it's all in Dutch, I will say that it describes pretty well what it is like to live here.

In the opening interview, Philip mentions that he is on his way to a place called the Biesbosch. It is one of the quietest places in the area, but even so, you can still hear the highway if the wind is in the 'wong direction'. He speaks of his love for France because of its silence, something he finds quite addictive. Here in the Oude Haven, I will agree that it is very noisy, even though it is like a village in the city. Still, Philip says that the handy thing is that, when he wants to go away - to find some peace -he just takes his 'house' with him. That has always been the main appeal of living on a boat for me too...no packing, no leaving your familiar things behind, just travel with your home around you, like a snail.

You then see interview clips with Eva. She and her boyfriend, Nico, live on a big luxe motor barge, and Nico is a ship's carpenter. Eva talks about the sense of freedom in living afloat, along with the feeling of camping all year round, and of living in a village. She also speaks of how people are mostly very willing to help each other when necessary. It's a close community, and everyone knows each other - something that's very unusual in the heart of a city.

Other contributors are Martin, an 'older' member of our community, who is amazingly fit despite his more than 70 years now. He also talks about the sense of freedom you have on a boat, but he goes on to describe how he lives a somewhat primitive lifestyle because his ship is still in the process of being restored and converted. Showers are taken at the yard, cooking is take-aways and convenience foods (he has no kitchen) and life is pretty basic on board his tjalk. Nevertheless, I know of few people his age who have as much energy and drive to keep going, so it must be a healthy recipe really!

Then you see red-bearded Joram at work. He is a professional restorer, being both an expert welder and riveter. He lives and works here in the harbour as that is its - and his - purpose: the restoration of historic barges. He says that although it's true that there's this sense of freedom (we all have the illusion of it anyway), anyone who thinks living on a ship is easy is mistaken. It is mostly very hard work, and maintenance is a constant battle to keep one step ahead of the elements (my words here, not his).

There is of course more, but in essence, that is what the movie is about. I think it also underscores the fact that all of us who live here are either hopeless romantics, square pegs, or simply individuals who want a different way of living that still offers some semblance of autonomy. It's an honest insight into our village people, but despite the romance, none of us harbours any illusions about the work involved in maintaining these old barges.

All that being said, the winter is approaching and lots of jobs have to be finished before it gets too cold. This year, the elements have really been against us. I am so hoping the rain will stop for a few days so we can just do what's needed to keep the our floating homes preserved for another year - that is, until next spring when we will have to start all over again!

Geslaagd!!

2011-09-09T23:55:00.004+02:00

That sounds dreadful doesn't it? With its gutteral 'g', this word 'geslaagd' conveys the feeling that you're about to swipe someone's head off, but actually its meaning is much more pleasant. Thank goodness.

The whole sentence I should have written was : "Ik ben geslaagd voor mijn examen Nederlands als tweede taal." And about this, I am very pleased indeed. What it means is ...yay! I passed my Dutch exam!

I can tell you that no one is more surprised than I am. I was so convinced I'd messed it up completely, but I do realise, in retrospect, that as a language teacher myself, I might be expecting more and greater things than the examiners are. That doesn't make me feel altogether good about my level, though. Even I know that both my daughters, who have absorbed the language like sponges and kindly smother their giggles at my bumbling attempts, would have sailed through. Meanwhile, I struggle on to figure out what the heck people are rattling on at me about. Still, the fact that I have taken the hurdle head on, cleared it and stumbled to my feet on the other side is very, very satisfying.

The exam itself was quite an experience. I was one of around fifty candidates. Each part of the exam (writing, listening, reading and speaking) took between two and three hours, so the whole event extended over two days. I say each part took more than two hours, but in fact, about half an hour of each test consisted of instructions being barked at us by a sergeant major of an adjudicator. "U mag niet dit en u mag niet dat" and so on and so on as he marched up and down the room with his megaphone telling us in no uncertain terms what we may not do. Okay, it wasn't really a megaphone. It was actually a small mike, but it sounded distinctly OTT.

One of the things that we were allowed to do was use a dictionary for the writing and reading sections, but our drill sergeant warned us that resorting to such aids 'kost tijd' and that we didn't have much 'tijd'. He wasn't kidding. I mean we had two hours to write three reports, a job application and then complete sections of thirteen short letters and paragraphs. I can't even do that in English! Predictably, I ran out of time and ended up writing a heap of irrelevant banalities about labelling litter bins for a proposal about how to clean up our city. My job application letter wouldn't even have passed a litter bin without voluntarily diving in, it was such rubbish.

As for the listening test, well, it would have been great if I'd known anything about being a fisherman landing massive shoals of Cod or such like in the North Sea, or what it means to be wrestling with a flailing 200 metre water hose in the fire service - something I've always wanted to do, I can assure you! It did make me wonder how some of my fellow candidates from somewhat hotter, drier climes fared here, I must say. But, the worst by far was the speaking test.

It was on Day 2, and I confess to having felt a tad over confident after the reading test in the morning, which I found fairly easy. Big mistake. We filed into the exam room after lunch and sat at our cubicles, ready for the sergeant major to strut his stuff. "Put on your headphones," he barked. We did as ordered, but then couldn't hear what he was saying properly. Clever. I took off one 'ear' and gathered that we would be played a tape, which would have questions related to some pictures in a booklet we were given. We then had to answer the questions on the basis of what we saw in the pictures. Okay, so far. It sounded quite good actually. Not only would we hear, but also see what we needed to talk about. Great!

Not. What I hadn't realised was that we would all hear the tape at exactly the same time and exactly the same speed. This meant the 'peeptone' signalling our queue to answer came at the same time for everyone. Result? A huge cacophony of noise as everyone yelled into their mikes at the same time (you know the effect of wearing headphones? When everyone thinks no one can hear them?) I was totally thrown. Couldn't think. Couldn't say anything other than simply to utter even more banal nonsense than I'd come up with in the writing test. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, it felt as if the whole room was trying to shout me down. Disaster. What got me was that I'd had a really nice chat in the waiting room with a young Brazilian guy all about social problems in Brazil and Holland, and all in Dutch, but here I was unable to mutter anything even vaguely comprehensible into a microphone. At least that's what it felt like.

Anyhow, when the letter with my results arrived last Friday, I couldn't quite believe my eyes. I'd passed all four subjects! It's taken me a week to absorb it, and now that I've got my 'diploma' on a fancy certificate, I'm beginning to feel positively euphoric about it. In fact, I don't think I've ever felt quite so chuffed about passing an exam in my life. I'm even thinking of having a go at the next programme...

Listen, if I can do it anyone can, so if not, why not? Hey?

Back to Business

2011-08-27T12:17:00.008+02:00

The end of August. The end of summer. What summer?

Many of us in Europe are asking this at the moment. Throughout most of France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, and eastern Europe too, we have had what is possibly the wettest, coldest summer in more than ten years (at least as long as I have been here). To make it worse, when it has been warmer, the humidity levels have been so high, it has been excruciatingly unpleasant. Add that to lack of sun and you get a stuffy, oppressive warmth that you cannot relieve because it's still raining and the doors and windows have to be closed. In one word..yuk!

We had the most glorious, dry spring with long days of sun and warmth, but it doesn't help because that's when we were all at still work. The two holiday months, July and August - those months when everyone with a family, or anyone who works in education, is obliged to take their time off - have been a complete washout.

We have, however, managed a few brief days of sunny escape. Sadly, both these interludes were cut short, but nonetheless, I have already posted the photos, so you can see that we made the most of them.

Northern France was a surprise I will not forget: its emptiness, space and stunning vistas reminded me so much of parts of South Africa. We were terribly disappointed when the clutch on the van packed up two days before we were due to head home, so we had to limp back to Zeeland early.

My trip to the south was also cut short. What was originally intended to be five days there plus one day returning dwindled to a weekend visit to my sister, including a mad dash to Toulouse and back. We then had to leave early on Monday for them (my sister and brother-in-law) to catch the ferry on Tuesday morning. A misunderstanding about dates that was wholly my fault, but disappointing all the same.

Still, I did at least have two days of sun, although even there it wasn't as hot as I was expecting or hoping for it to be, and it has certainly given me a desire to go back. What a beautiful land it is. I am also completely intrigued by the still medieval customs and habits of the rural French paysan. It feels like stepping back several centuries, and I love it. The sunflowers; the Bastide towns on the hilltops; the ancient, pale or golden stone farm houses and barns, and the sense of both a populace area but one with huge spaces as well.

The visit to my former employer, Roger, at his gorgeous old farmhouse in the department of l'Aude, gave me several new insights into the character of the place, the people and their customs, not to mention the canny (and sometimes downright fraudulent) way they turn the agriculture subsidy systems to their advantage.

This is a subject that often gets my blood up, as France receives as much as 80% of the EU's agricultural subsidies and has everything its own way. On the other side of the Channel, large numbers of English farmers have gone out of business and had to leave their farms due to EU agricutural policies that have killed their generations-old way of life. I love France, but on this subject, I can get very heated very quickly - especially when I see how they abuse it.

Anyhow, at least we have been able to get away, if only very briefly. In the interim, I've made desperate attempts to paint my barge between the downpours, only to have my work ruined by hail or heavy rain. All told, though, I don't really feel I've had a holiday, and now it's time to go back to business and prepare for the new school year. I think I'll try and go away at Christmas for a week or so. Perhaps that's a better idea!

For now, though, all the best to all of you, and apologies for the slightly jaded sounding post. I promise the next one will a return to my normal cheerful enthusiasm! I'll leave you with some photos of Zeeland last weekend, when we took a lovely walk between the showers.

The only way I could get both Koos and Sin in the same photo

Zeeland scenery in the evening light

The harvesters are out. Amazingly, they have had a great crop this year!

Luxury coffee Belgian style, accompanied by a glass of advocaat and cream on top of a small scoop of ice cream. Sinfully divine...

And now for the south

2011-08-18T22:37:00.003+02:00

I wish I had time to write a proper post at the moment, but it's late and tomorrow I have to be out early, but in the words of Rod Stewart, or more importantly, Koos, every picture tells a story, so I'm doing just that. Here is a link to the photos I took during my recent trip to southern France this last week. I hope you enjoy the ride with me.

Another precious experience was the spectacle my sister and brother-in-law took me to see in Valence d'Agen. It was called Au Fil de L'eau and was the story of the town covering the whole of the 20th century told from the perspective of one family. A spectacle it was and an absolute delight. You can see the photos I managed to take of it here.

If you don't get the slideshow straight away, look at the menu bar above the photos and click on slideshow.

The lonely beauty of northern France

2011-08-03T23:17:00.009+02:00

One car is enough

Straw medallions are everywhere at this time of year

I sit in the van on the crest of a hill. The window is open but it's raining softly. Ahead, the road sweeps away, plunging into a deep valley and then climbing to a vanishing point far, far in the distance. Golden fields stretch out on either side of me, dipping and rising in rolling waves. They are scattered with perfectly round bales of straw which gleam bright as coins as they catch odd rays of sun penetrating the clouds. Everything is still. Completely silent, except for the rain drops pattering on the windscreen.

Then I see car lights, just pin pricks for a while until they grow and take form. They charge down the hill, disappearing for a few seconds and then blast over the rise in front of me. Suddenly all is noise as the car rockets past. A huge whoosh of sound and the van shakes. And then all is silence again. There is nothing else here. No building, no sign of life other than these strange straw coins in the well tended fields. It has a haunting, lonely magnificence

This is France in the Picardy region - the department of Aisne to be exact. Koos and I are on a few days' break and are discovering the breathtaking beauty of the north. Neither of us has ever explored this part of the country before and we are both convinced that most others haven't either. There are few tourists here and we largely have the roads and the gorgeous villages to ourselves. Last night we were in Guise, a charming town dominated by the massive ruins of a medieval castle high on its hilltop. Today we spent the afternoon in Laon, a much larger and well known medieval city, famous for its superb gothic cathedral and ancient city buildings. It is a lovely place, shabby, but clean, gracious but lively and oozing history from every ancient stone.

A real french folly - a fantastic gateway in the middle of..well...nowhere

Then this evening brought the highlight of the day. We drove to a tiny village south of Laon called Braye en Laonnais where we saw the entrance to a two and a half kilometre tunnel on the Canal de L'Aisne à L'Oise. Yesterday we had seen the rather sad remains of a collapsed aqueduct on the Canal de la Sambre à L'Oise, so it was great to see this tunnel in good repair and clearly in use. Again, it was incredibly quiet and still and the evening sun cast a marvellous warm light over the hills and scenery around the canal.

The entrance to the 2.5 km tunnel on the Canal de L'Aisne à L'Oise

My phone photo doesn't do this scenery justice

We drove further and at the village of Bourg et Comin, we saw the canal cross the Oise again by means of another aqueduct. Standing on a bridge near the village, we watched a barge pass beneath us on its way to rest up for the night and a little further, we listened to the hushed talk of contented boaters enjoying the quiet of a French canal on a summer's eve.

It is food for my soul to experience this space, this beauty and this almost lonely silence, and what it tells me is that you don't need to go south to find France at its best. It is this, and it is here. It is and has everything I love about the country, and if I could I would settle here and let myself take root in this ancient land of hills and heavenly horizons.

PS I'll post more photos when I have a better connection. The first two are courtesy of Koos.

Post helling hiccoughs

2011-07-18T23:51:00.006+02:00

I realise things have been rather quiet here, but there's a reason for that. It all has to do with the Marion Aagje. Mo and Craig's week on the slipway was long, hard work and they put in equally long hours to finish doing all the loud and dirty work that can only be done in the yard. The redundant mast was craned off, the mast foot unbolted, and lots of extraneous bits of steel were ground off by a determined Craig.

As I was still working, I could only help for limited amounts of time, but by the end of the week, most of the necessary welding, grinding, scraping and banging had been done. Then, the dreaded moment when they came off the slips. All seemed fine, until they got back to the mooring next to the Vereeniging. It was then the leak appeared. Water bubbled up and into the hold in rather worrisome quantities. Not sure of exactly where it was coming from, they covered every possible spot with quick drying cement, but the flow still kept flowing. Mo and I spent the best part of an afternoon excavating the now redundant and well solidified cement till we found the real source of the problem, but then, how to stop it? Well cement again did the trick - eventually - but not before I'd requested a return to the helling to pull it out of the water again. Mo managed to exert her will over the leak and pushed enough of the grey powdery stuff into it to finally halt the flow.

After that, well, the rain started, and it rained and it rained and it rained. Last Thursday, the 14th, poor Jodie came to visit for her birthday. It rained relentlessly the entire day, not just lightly, but torrentially, in fact so much that water leaked through my windows and into the bottom of the Vereeniging. Now I had a leak too, but this time from above, not below.

Anyhow, fortunately Friday dawned clear and bright. The sky was blissfully blue - the perfect day for painting. Mo, Craig and I set to it and spent the whole day painting the Marion Aagje from end to end and the results are in the photos above. I gave up around nine at night, but the kids went on and finally finished up at midnight. The barge looks gorgeous now, and I absolutely love the colours they have chosen. There's still loads for them to do, but the bulk of the work - outside at least - is done. What a job and what a week, but then that's life if you have a barge...as they say here 'koop een boot, werk je dood'...I don't think it's all too difficult to work out what that means....

A helling of a week

2011-07-08T22:33:00.001+02:00

I fully intended to do this post a bit earlier, but what with one thing and another, the week has run away with us and I find it's already Friday with another of those helling weeks nearly over.

This time it was Mo and Craig's turn. Monday morning found us up with the lark helping them to move their barge, the Marion Aagje to the slipway (or helling, as it is known here in the Netherlands). We didn't really do all that much as friend and neighbour, Bas, who was coming off the slips, moored up his own barge and then promptly jumped into the little harbour tug and pulled the Marion Aagje skilfully to the bottom of the ramp. Our contribution in the end was mainly to lend moral support and to act as translators when orders were being barked from the helling crew to Mo and Craig on board.

In the end, it all went very smoothly, and since then, I've lent a hand (when I haven't been at work) with sanding, painting, and the dismantling of various items they wanted off the barge. We've also been official 'Charlie-the-spaniel sitters' when the need has arisen.

They have worked incredibly hard, but this is usual for a 'helling week', as we do it all ourselves in the Oude Haven. By Monday, I expect they will be ready to sleep for a week, or at least their limbs will be. Luckily, they'll be staying over our side for some days while they finish painting and working, so the pressure won't be quite so intense, and hopefully they can relax a little. As long as the weather is relatively kind, they should be able to get plenty done. In the meantime, I'll keep the pictures coming.

It's a K Day

2011-07-01T23:46:00.004+02:00

Birthdays in Holland are famous, but not always for the right reasons. Mostly they are the subject of derision among non Dutch imports (like myself), who cannot quite grasp why this ritual needs to be endured every year. I'll admit that's what I used to think too, but yesterday, K Day as I have dubbed it, changed my opinion, and now, I think I could actually get to like these excuses for getting together in a family sort of way.

It was, as most of you already know from that most frenetic of social networks, Koos's birthday.

Why have I changed my mind, then? It helped that the weather was kind. In fact, it was lovely. It also helped that Koos's two sisters are real darlings, and they were the first to arrive with their respective husbands. We did the coffee, tea and apple gebak sitting on the foredeck of the Vereeniging in the sunshine. Koos held court for his family like one born to it - which of course he was.

Then Mo and Craig stepped across from the Marion Aagje which is now moored up next to us (more about that next time), followed by Koos's son, Sanne, and his wife, and not much later by Jodie and Barry. All three dogs, Sindy, Charlie and Beowulf joined the party too, and the conversation took on a noticeably more youthful tone. The tea was exchanged for beer and the apple cake for quiche and salad.

A little later still, Kasper, Koos's other son arrived and then the party was complete. The sun kept shining, the beer kept flowing and all was well with the world. By the time they all left, I realised I'd rather enjoyed the day after all. To see the whole family is always great, and birthdays are really the only occasions everyone manages to make the time to get together. Maybe these cloggies don't have such a bad thing going after all. Dutch birthdays? Just an excuse to get your nearest and dearest in the same place at the same time - something that is becoming increasingly difficult in this hectic world of ours. But well worth it when it happens, mostly anyway :)

Jodie and Beowulf

Kasper and Koos

Craig and Charlie

All and sundry

Mo and Charlie

Captain Scott

2011-06-26T14:41:00.010+02:00

Up with the lark this morning. Off to Krimpen aan den IJssel to fetch a boat. Not with Koos this time, but with Mo and Craig. It feels horribly early for a Sunday morning and the world is still and hushed.

The previous owners are still in their dressing gowns, but smile cheerfully as they show us through their house and out onto their private jetty. Then it's busy, busy getting ready, checking fuel, ropes, safety measures and procedures. Never done this before, not without Koos, that is.

Mo untying ropes in readiness for our departure

The boat is a small cruiser of 7 metres. Neat, but a bit untended and unfinished inside. A nice price though. It has a large outboard motor and this is the 'fear point'. We don't know it, don't know if we can trust it, and are not sure whether it will run the distance. The former owner seems to know as much about boats as you could write on an aspirin with a pickaxe, so we are not inspired to have total confidence.

At last we are off. The ropes are cast and we ease out of the tiny harbour. We've been there for nearly an hour and not seen another craft, but Murphy pulls one out of the bag and we have to wait for a largish passenger vessel before crossing to the right bank and starting downstream.

The small private harbour where the little cruiser was moored

The waters of the IJssel are peaceful and it is millpond still. Marvellous. Craig is steering and going well. It is his boat, in fact, so he is the skipper today. Captain Scott sails again, or rather for the first time ever.

Craig at the wheel. Even his back view speaks his pride in the CMS Brutus. And justly so

Mo, steering well and with concentration

The last bridge before the Hollandse IJssel meets theNieuwe Maas

Then Mo takes a turn. She too steers well, focuses well. Then it is my turn. I am not a natural steerer. At first, I am all over the place with the unaccustomed weightlessness of the boat, and the steering has some play too - a sort of delayed action. Very unlike the positive and direct steering of the Vereeniging. But I get the hang of it in the end and take us out of the smaller Hollandse IJssel to join the wider super highway of the Nieuwe Maas. The water becomes choppy and we meet the waves caused by the bigger shipping: container barges, normal cargo craft, the Fast Ferry to Dordrecht and many more cruisers.

Moi

As we approach the monster Van Brienenoord bridge, I am alarmed by a fast ferry steaming up behind us and a stationary barge apparently blocking the opening I wanted to go through to avoid the fast ferry. One moment of panic.

But there is plenty of room for a small cruiser anyway, so we pull through the side section of the bridge and avoid the worst of the swell created by the ferry.

Over to Craig again, and Captain Scott ploughs on. We're into home territory now. "There's the tank station!" I send Koos an SMS. He calls back "I'm at the Tropicana" he says. Oh good, he is at the best point to watch to see if it's safe for us to cross. We have to power over the river , round the Noordereiland and into the south channel that leads to Mo and Craig's harbour.

As we approach, Koos calls again. A familiar barge is coming out of the exit from our own Oude Haven. "Wait for it to cross and then if it's clear, follow it over," says Koos. There is another fast ferry coming up behind us. In what seems like a coreographed manoeuvre, the pretty sailing barge, Linquenda, pulls across the river just before the ferry reaches us and they skirt round each other like well practised dancers. There is nothing more in sight, so Captain Scott powers up. "Follow that barge!" I say, and he does. We are soon safely across the river and with it the scariest part of the trip. Or almost.

Approaching the Hef Bridge

As we approach the Hef Bridge, we notice the water eddying and swirling around us. Mo has taken the wheel while Captain Scott calls the bridge keeper of their harbour, but soon passes the wheel back to the skipper to take us through the apparent maelstrom.

As we pass under the bridge, a curious sinking feeling strikes me and I see it does the same to Mo. Why does it feel as if we are being sucked into the water? It starts to be really alarming until I realise suddenly that we are not going down, it is the bridge that is going up. A small yacht with a tall mast needs to come through, and the bridge has to be raised for it. The optical illusion created by the rising section of bridge and the swirling of the waters causes a very strange physical feeling indeed.

But now we are there. We have made it, and we are safe. All that remains is for the bridge to be opened into Mo and Craig's harbour and we are told this may take a while. Captain Scott cruises round and round gently while Mo and I sit on the bows and enjoy the gentle slapping of quiet waters against the hull. The sun shines softly through the mist. This is it. This is what it's about. This is why I like boats and boating.

Finally the bridge is opened and Craig takes us slowly through. Their neighbours wave and nod approvingly at Craig's little cruiser. Up to the end of the harbour and with some helpful hands, the CMS Brutus fits snugly into its box. We are really there now, and it all went fine. No dramas, no crises have marred Craig and Mo's first ever voyage, unassisted by those with more experienced hands.

Well done Captain Scott. I think you're going to be good at this!

The drought - what drought?

2011-06-16T23:02:00.005+02:00

Rotterdam in drier times

It already seems impossible we had those weeks and weeks of dry, sunny weather. Today it has rained unremittingly. Heavy, hard rain that soaks with every drop. It's the rain that floods are made of, that locks you inside physically and mentally and gives you a feeling of isolation. It doesn't take me long to hate it, even though I know we need it.

My poor little Coot, who has made a beautiful nest of recycled harbour rubbish, has sat firmly on her one and only egg throughout the deluge. She had two until yesterday, but either a heron has had one, or it got blown away in the wind. I wish I could protect her somehow, but she is strong and, I suppose, used to the rain. Her nest is on the cover of our friend's rowing boat. He's always telling us we can use it, but I haven't had the heart to tell him why we don't. The boat is serving a very important purpose as a nursery, but I fear he might not see it that way.

In a barge, the rain is much more 'present' in one's life. Not that it comes in. You just hear it so much more than you do in a house. It clatters on the tarpaulin that coves the hatch boards and pounds the water around you. The only other time I've been so aware of the rain outside was when I lived in a house with a corrugated iron roof, but that was in Africa where the rain was even more torrential. But much more condensed too. It only lasted half an hour a day mostly. Here, well, it just hasn't stopped. Today anyway.

So, what does one do on days like this? Most of the time, I have classes to go to and a Koos to come home to, but today, my classes were cancelled and there was no Koos. He is in Poland. My solution was to write another children's story in between the assignments I had to mark and taking Sindy for her constitutional 'dash and slash' sorties. This story is also based on a proverb (like Cleo the cloud) and it kept me busy when I might otherwise have become gloomy. I still have to edit it, but who knows, maybe it's the start of a series? How to familiarise children with our old English proverbs through stories. It feels like quite a good plan, and of course the writing is the fun part.

Jodie is coming tomorrow, so maybe she'll be inspired to do some more illustrating. All I can say for the moment is...watch this space....and I wish you all a sunny, dry weekend. I think that's probably real wishful thinking here, but it will be true for some people, somewhere. Enjoy it if you have it xx

The sky's the limit - as long as the clouds keep forming

2011-06-13T23:28:00.002+02:00

A Story About Clouds by Valerie Poore |

Okay, I know it's not done to focus on oneself, but if I don't promote me, I can't expect anyone else to either. Well, this time I can also say I'm promoting Jodie as an illustrator too.

The preview above is a little book I've just produced as a children's tale. The story is one I wrote years ago, and in fact, published on this blog, but a friend of mine has recently had a baby, and I decided it would be so nice to give her something more personal than the normal baby gifts. I'm sure she's got everything anyway, so what better than a 'home produced' gift. That aside, I really love with the way it's turned out and the illustrations Jodie has done are just gorgeous, so I'm very chuffed with it.

Of course, I have to add that if anyone's interested in it as a gift for a son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandchild...well you name it.... then feel free to order it..my pleasure!

Is this it?

2011-06-04T23:17:00.003+02:00

We are having the most magnificent weather at the moment. In fact, we've been having it since the beginning of April, and bar just a few cloudy rainy days, we've had two months of the most glorious sunshine with dry dry conditions. The farmers are just about surviving on the strength of those few wet days, and today I saw the first fields of cut and baled hay. Always a favourite sight. Now I feel that summer is really here. Today it was 30 degrees by mid afternoon, and for me this was, simply, wonderful.

But as always, the question lurks: will this be it? Are we having our summer now? And will the rest of it be one long, wet disappointment? I so hope not, as I could really get used to this very easily. There is rain forecast for this coming week, but the week after looks set to be fine again. Last year, we had an early summer and from mid July to the end of August, we could count the number of fair weather days on one hand. I guess we're all praying it's not going to be a repeat performance this year.

My work is drawing to a close now, so that's another reason to hope for good things to come. I have three courses to finish up, and one that goes on until the end of July, but at least I'll have some more time to work on the Vereeniging and the HH, and of course, my current Writing Project. At the end of the month, the kitchen in the little house is going to receive some much needed attention, and I'll have to find some new cupboards to replace the rather shabby present incumbents. There is always work to be done and there are always plans, but in the end, I hope Koos and I can get away for a few days together.

Our aim is to take a week at the beginning of August, but so far we're not sure where we are going or how. Later on, I shall be going to France to visit my sister for a few days, and before that - in fact, next week - Koos is off to Poland again on another hunt for the perfect photos. In the meantime, I shall present a few more of my more recent snaps to add colour to this rather non descript post :)

Poppies hiding in the reeds with rapeseed fields in the background.

And changing the subject abruptly, Jodie's new baby, Beowulf. What a sweetie!

I rather like this slightly strange photo Koos took of Jo, me and the dogs recently.

A typically peaceful Zeeuws Vlaanderen scene.

And more poppies. I just love them!

An experiment

2011-05-30T23:09:00.003+02:00

Here are two random photos I have taken recently with my phone. Both of them are what you might call 'road' photos', but why did I take them? At face value, it might seem obvious (to some), but there are reasons for both pics.

The little Fiat cars are absolutely a favourite of mine at the moment, but that isn't the reason I snapped them, and then what about the beautiful medieval bridge at Tournai in Belgium? No prizes for telling me where it is (haha), but I might give one if you can tell me its Flemish city name. Still, what is it that appealed to me here? Any guesses? Just take a good think about what grabs my attention these days, and maybe you'll hit on the answer.

Busy times

2011-05-26T22:52:00.004+02:00

Blogging isn't exactly easy at the moment. I'd love to post something on a more regular basis, but without boring everyone with the mundane and irrelevant musings of my daily life (fascinating as I'm sure they are...not), there isn't much to write about other than work and the equally mundane and irrelevant musings of what that involves.

What has happened today (surprise surprise) is that the weather has changed. Yes. It has. And it's quite a shock to the system. I've got so used to the sun shining every day that I now feel positively indignant about the rain and wind we've had for much of the afternoon. How dare it! We've had no rain to speak of since the beginning of April, and the days have been lengthening with ever more beautiful evenings. I just hope they come back. Okay, we need the rain. The gardens need it, the water table needs it, and, goodness knows, the farmers need it. The fields around the little house are like a dust bowl. Not funny when this is supposed to be the growing season.

Still, I'm hoping for dry days at the weekend, because I have a plan to work on the Vereeniging and do all the second coats of paint that are needed to add to the first coats that were done some weeks ago. I'm not even talking about the HH at the moment. The first coats are still an ongoing project there, not to mention the other technical issues that keep rearing their ugly heads like Medusa on a bad hair day.

Last weekend was lovely, though. The incomparable and incorrigible Invader Stu came to stay with his super Simone, and we turned the weekend into a kind of photography workshop. They have recently bought a DSLR camera like Koos's, and were really experimenting with it for the first time. It was great to see them having so much fun. It was also a weekend of lovely walks in our peaceful corner of Zeeuws Vlaanderen. Here are a couple of my own photos as empirical evidence, so to speak.

Madrigals Reunited

2011-05-19T08:39:00.006+02:00

Years and years ago (forty in fact), in 1971, I went with a group of very special friends to Yugoslavia and other countries in Europe. The tour was also for a special purpose. We were all members of a Madrigal group, and we sang these beautifully harmonised medieval and baroque songs in the most marvellous places along the way: Luxembourg, Salzburg and Dubrovnik to name but a very few.

This year, there will be a reunion of the group, and somehow, I will make sure I am there. We will sing together again (although I can imagine our voices will have lost that youthful quality now), laugh together again (that never fails) and catch up with all those lost years.

The organiser of the reunion, affectionately known as The Drain because his name was Adrian, has started a blog, and I've had my heart stopped by the memories several times. It's been wonderful to find out what these old friends have been up to. I guess there was always something adventurous about all of us, because most of us seem to have either lived overseas or spent some years overseas, or still (like me) live away from the UK. There is one I've been looking for for several years, and had I known it, I could have visited easily....all the time I lived in South Africa, she was in Botswana - just across the border. In fact, she still lives there, so maybe that's a good excuse for a holiday trip?

The photo above (published courtesy of Andi Broom as was) is of just a few of our group. I remember each and every one of them with deep affection, and in fact the boy with the red hair was even, briefly, a romantic attachment at one time. I can't remember whether it was before or after this trip, though. Can anyone spot me in the group?

Wandering into the Snails again

2011-05-16T22:54:00.003+02:00

This last weekend has been an odd one weather wise. We had big plans for working hard on the Hennie H, but a change in the wind brought rain instead of the sun we've been used to these past six weeks or more. We did quite well on Saturday and finished fixing Koos's beautiful hatches into position. I also managed to give half the back deck a coat of paint (see above), but then Sunday morning came and with it the rain. So, instead of playing duck and dice with the clouds, we decided to head south for the day and have a day in Belgium with a goal, this being to look for the Wandering Snail. We knew they were somewhere around Tournai, but didn't know exactly where.
Our meanderings took us south of Tournai itself and around the villages of Peronnes, Maubray and Antoing. It is really lovely country around there, made more appealing, of course, by canals, railways and old windmills, a series of which can be seen on the hillsides around Maubray. For some reason, only the lower halves remain, but they make very striking monuments standing proud on the hilltops. The one above was especially appealing with its crown of creeping ivy and wild flowers around its footings.

This is the remains of an old lock on the former route from Pommeroeul to Antoing

Just for the record!

By some fluke, we manage to come across the Snail. It was absolutely not where we expected it to be. We'd already been to the boatyard where we thought they were heading. Crossing the Schelde at Antoing, I looked out of the van window and there it was, moored side by side with another narrow boat. We found Ol on board with Woody, Sindy's other boyfriend. Sadly for us, Anne had gone off to a concert in Valenciennes, but Ol made us a very welcome cup of coffee, and we sat and talked boats and waterways for an hour or two. It was great to see him and we'd had a marvellous escape from duty for the day. I can highly recommend it as a tonic, especially as the sun came out for us too. I always approve of that.

Boaty stuff

2011-05-08T21:39:00.007+02:00

Last weekend, we had the highlight of going out on the Vereeniging, but what I didn't mention in my last post was the several days Koos and I had spent re-painting the red and black stripes around the barge that we'd stripped completely during the 'hellingbeurt' (or week on the slipway). Our outing was a kind of celebration on completion of that work. It never stops, but you have to have some excuse to enjoy it sometimes...

Well this last week, we've been down at the little house in Zeeland. I haven't so much had a holiday as taken a few days off from face to face teaching. Much of my work at the moment is online, so for that it doesn't matter where I am or what time if day I do it. Good huh? So I cancelled a few individual sessions and spent these glorious spring days on the Hennie H. Yes, it's still there and is still a project in progress, but now we are back in the water, the other paintwork still has to be done. We've worked hard this week, and Koos has done a fantastic job of making new hatches for the engine room, while I have been wielding my paintbrush. Unfortunately for Koos, my work is the more visible, but his has been harder and more technically demanding. Sadly, if I showed you photos of what he's done, you might not really notice the difference, but the hatches are now infinitely more professional and water proof than they were before. I think he's done a brilliant job. As soon as they are totally finished, I'll post photos and a description. For now, I'll leave you with a couple of pics of our outing, and a few of the newly painted decks on the Hennie Hahahahaha........ha!.

Our guests, Roger, Eveline and Mo with me about to head over to the steering deck. Photo taken by Marion Corfield.

Sindy doing what Sindy always does on boat trips - seeking protection. Photo by Marion Corfield

Heading out across the river. Wow, did that feel good!

The HH with its pristine painted decks

The sad, the good and the wonderful

2011-05-02T20:19:00.009+02:00

This last weekend has been one of memories: memories recalled and memories made. The photos above were taken on 31 May 2004 when we took the Vereeniging on its first real 'tocht' upstream from Rotterdam. Koos took the photos and my guide and mentor on this trip was a very dear friend, Jan, whose funeral we sadly had to attend on Friday. It was cancer that took him. For my own part, I like to remember him as he was that day - healthier, happier and stronger than I had or have ever seen him. These photos are precious as a result.

Saturday here was Queen's day, a good and festive day for all cloggies. Koos and I didn't take much part in it as we were busy preparing the Vereeniging for another day out. Still, Koos managed to take this photo of preparations for the festivities in the harbour, I think it's great. There is a surreal quality about the girl and the balloons against the brickwork of the flats behind.

Sunday morning dawned bright, sunny and breezy, and at 12 o'clock we welcomed our friends on board, along with Mo, Craig and their spaniel, Charlie, who happens to be Sindy's best friend these days. Craig and Koos started the old motor going with one easy swing of the starting handle (the starter motor has packed up but that's another story), and the Vereeniging suddenly came to life, pulsing with energy and ready to go 'faring'. With the ropes cast off, the gangplank on the quay and everyone on board, Koos steered us expertly out of the the Oude Haven. We did a tour of the neighbouring harbours, and then it was out onto the river to test the new stabilizers Frits and Koos had made and Frits had welded on during the last 'hellingbeurt'. What a difference they make..no more rolling like a porpoise and nothing dislodged from inside. Brilliant. We went downstream a short distance and crossed the river to go round the Noordereiland by the Erasmus Bridge. A quick tour round Mo and Craig's habour, and then back to the river, upstream and round the end of the island. The Vereeniging then powered back across the river at an impressive speed and we re-entered our harbour complex at the eastern end. By the time we eased back into our berth, we'd been out for an hour and a half and enjoyed every second of it - well I had anyway. I just love being on the water, and with the weather and wind as it was, well, it was simply wonderful (if you'll excuse all the alliteration).

When we broke out the beers and a bottle of wine to celebrate, I made a silent toast to Jan. He would have loved it too. Go well, Jan. You were a real people person or 'mensen-man' as they say here, and I can bet you will be steering folks around the celestial seas from now on.

Wish you were still here, though.

Amsterdam

2011-04-22T20:17:00.006+02:00

This week has been both busy and beautiful. What weather we are having! Mid summer would be hard put to equal this week's continuous sunshine, mid twenties temperatures and cloudless blue skies. I'm slightly worried this is going to be it for the year though. The last few years have delivered the best weather a tad too early for us to really benefit from it in the usual holiday period.

Anyhow, the start of this week took me to Amsterdam. I've been going there quite frequently recently as I've been giving what is known as blended learning Academic Writing courses for the University of Amsterdam. This type of programme involves a combination of face to face and online teaching, although for the courses I've been giving, there are only two face to face sessions in the eight week programme. I'm not sorry about this as going to Amsterdam for a two hour session uses up pretty much an entire day. It takes me two hours to get where I have to go, two (and some) to give the class, and then another two (and a bit more) to get home again. Nearly 7 hours.

Still, I enjoy these excursions into the heart of the country's capital, the place where the intelligentsia and the tourists congregate. The vibe is so different from Rotterdam. Amsterdam feels like a city of poets, artists and literature. It feels like the city of intellectuals. Rotterdam, by contrast, is the city of action. It revels in its soaring modern architecture, its industrial buzz and reputation for keeping the pulse of the country beating. Two totally different cultures, often at odds with each other, but equally exciting to me.

That being said, this last Monday was glorious and I took my camera with me to capture some of what gives Amsterdam that special something. Here, then, are the results:

Spring Fever

2011-04-17T14:26:00.005+02:00

The creek close to the little house.

Finding the time to do everything I want to do and get enough sleep at the same time seems to be difficult. As I advance in years, I seem to need more sleep, not less, and this conflicts with the ideas I have of continuing to do everything at a break neck speed, or at the very least with some kind of efficiency.

Much as I love the spring, it always reveals a heap of things to be done outside that in my winter cocoon mode, I have either failed to notice or deliberately ignored. Spring can even be a depressing time when you live on a barge as the winter is never kind to boats and while the rest of the world is waking up fresh and renewed, boats tend to look at their shabbiest and most neglected by contrast.

Two weeks ago, I had the Vereeniging on the slips for bottom work and painting. No inspection this time, but I had two metres of plating added for the zekerheid as we say here in the Netherlands. Added to that, the marvellous Frits (who did the work, nobly assisted by Koos) added stabilising fins to each side of the bottom to stop it rolling quite so porpoisefully (haha) when out on the choppy waters of the river. Meanwhile, I scraped, sanded and painted. Even so, we only managed to get the hull done, although we did remove some more of the old tar off the rubbing rail and take all the red paint off the strip above it. Frits is coming tomorrow to do some patchwork here, as while Koos was stripping the paint off with our very effective needle scaler, he also managed to take off some rusty lumps of steel. Parts of the strip now look like open weave lace work as a result.

Besides this, we have both been working hard on the Hennie H, now back in its berth and with a bottom so strong it will see both of us out plus a few generations of our combined offspring to come. The bottom is Strong with a well deserved and very expensive capital S. We have both agreed we can't afford to sell it now, it's cost us so much, so our latest dream is to take it to England and explore the UK canal network. I even think it might just happen!

On top of that, there is maintenance on the little house to be done (one job a week) plus real work (!) to do to keep paying for all this, and then in October, I am starting a Master's degree in TESOL. Will there be time for a holiday this year? I don't know, but since every weekend in Zeeuws Vlaanderen is like a holiday anyway, maybe it doesn't matter so much. At least we can still do fun things like nipping off to France for lunch, and thanks to the fantastic (and most importantly, very cheap) Ryan Air, the odd weekend to Poland, Sardinia or Malta is still on the cards.

The weather here is gorgeous at the moment too, so I can't even complain about lack of sunshine.

Spring and a new start

2011-04-10T21:39:00.007+02:00

It's been a long time since I've done a blog post. I'm out of the habit and out of the loop, but the desire to write something or anything is upon me again, so I'm starting small and hope it will grow like the flowers that are blooming all around us now.

What a spectacular time of year it is. I adore the spring. It's all about renewal, and that's how I feel now. Soooo, to get me going, here's a few pics that I took yesterday while on one of our mad dashes off to France. We went to a tiny place called Mons en Pévèle for lunch...just because...well, just because we love it there and it was a return visit we'd been promising ourselves. The photos will, I hope, show you why:

Canal side homes to be envied: Pont à Vendin

fronds of cherry blossom soften the severity of an old

railway bridge

From the other side, the goemetry of the bridge takes the focus

The church steeple towers above the village on the

hill at Mons en Pévèle

Mons en Pévèle basks in the warm spring sun

What a location for what a villa...what you get if you're

rich..

I can't see much wrong with this side, but you never can tell!

Transport can take many forms in rural France

It's about colour, that's all...

Mons en Pévèle in close-up

The last post

2011-01-02T15:41:00.013+01:00

*Until I'm back with more stories of life on board and on land, here are my three books in the event that anyone is interested in learning more about my travels and adventures, not to mention those of little Arie, whose daily existence was uncannily similar to that of my own Koos. More information about my writing work can be found on www.rivergirl.nu and http://breedingeccentrics.blogspot.com

And this, dear blogger friends, is going to be my last post for a goodly long while! I wrote this story with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but in fact, I have been finding the Internet to be far too compulsive and, like dear Bookworm Stefan, a waste of my real time and real life, so I've decided to go 'cold turkey' and switch it off for a while. I have a book to finish, a thesis to finish, things to make and sew, exhibitions to see, travels to take and not least of these, a huge amount of work to do in the coming months. I also still have email, so would love to hear from you there, but apart from this, I won't be around. Thanks for everything, and I mean that. My blogger pals have become real friends in many cases, and I would love to think I will meet more of you in the real world too.

In the words of Arnie (the terminator) Schwarzenegger: I'll be back.

A white Christmas week at least

2010-12-24T23:05:00.003+01:00

Koos couldn't resist all that pristine snow

Well it's been the coldest December I can remember...ever...which I suppose isn't saying that much bearing in mind that from 1981 - 2001 I lived in a country where I only saw snow once and then had to drive 400kms to find it.

Still, since I've been here, and that's ten years now, this really is the coldest it's been and the evidence is in the photo above. Never have I seen icicles on my barge like these. Never have I seen icicles hanging from the roofs or the sides of cars in this way. It really has been exceptional.

That being said, tomorrow is Christmas day and I don't think it will officially be a white one. We haven't had snow for a couple of days now, and it even thawed quite a bit yesterday, so a good deal of the thicker snow has gone, leaving what is now rather grubby pack ice everywhere - neither pretty nor very comfortable. Still, I'll leave you with this image here of a trailer I saw the other day parked all by itself and almost totally pristine with its covering of snow. I don't mind it when it looks like this.

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a chance to rest and relax, and that you will be heading into 2011 full of optimism for the next decade of the 21st century....makes it sound rather grand doesn't it? I'd better have a drink to that!

End of the year limbo

2010-12-21T18:00:00.002+01:00

And here's the black and white calendar. I like them both so much, I'm getting them both...one for the Vereeniging and one for the little house.

It's strange how the end of the year can make me feel. On the one hand, I like having a few weeks with less work - once the marking is over, that is. On the other, I find I have difficulty in managing my time. I know there are a multitude of things I really want to do, such as writing, finishing my thesis, doing some water colour painting, making a couple of skirts and so on, but my reluctance in getting down to any of them seems to suggest I don't want to do anything at all.

As a salve to my conscience, though, I have made a calendar using my own photos of the past year for my family, and I was pleased to hear that my sister had received hers yesterday. My family have got so used to having a Val calendar now that it's more or less expected, which is fine, because it solves a few of the Christmas gift worries. Having done that, I got to thinking that maybe a calendar would be a good medium for Koos' photos too, so now we have selected just a few of the images he took in Poland on this last trip and have made a calendar of those too. I think they look great, so apart from the usual family requirements, I have made it available on my Lulu.com 'storefront' in the hopes that others might find it appealing too.

Here it is for any of my blog friends who are interested:

I'm intending to make another couple. One will definitely be of his black and white photos, and another probably of Rotterdam. I think calendars are a good idea for promoting someone's art work, and of course it saves me from getting down to all the other things I've been putting off doing! In a very constructive way too, which can't be bad.

A place called Lillo

2010-11-29T23:45:00.009+01:00

Belgium is full of surprises. I suppose that in itself is not surprising when you think it is the home of surrealism; the birthplace of Tin Tin and the magnificent Jacques Brel; and the country where competitive cycling is the national sport, and not, as you might expect, football, rugby or even tennis.

Given as we are to forays into our neighbouring country in search of small adventures and unexpected delights, we were thrilled to bits a couple of weeks ago to find a treasure trove of surprises when stopping for a simple cup of coffee in the village of Lillo, not far from Antwerp.

Lillo itself is a surprise. It nestles amidst the towering cranes and container terminals of Antwerp's massive harbour. Virtually untouched by time, it retains its original earthwork fortifications surrounded by a moat and fronts the great estuary of the Schelde. It has its own tiny harbour, which empties at low tide so that the moored boats rest gently on the mud flats. It has also maintained its quaint village centre, which has become home to a number of artists and alternative-minded residents. To go there is to feel a sense of peace, a 'still point of the turning world' like TS Elliot's Burnt Norton.

Lillo was spared when the port of Antwerp was built, unlike many other villages that were swallowed up by the hunger for more and greater shipping terminals. Because of this, it has a timeless quality, and indeed time seems to have stood still there. No surprise then that Koos and I enjoy stopping there from time to time on the way to Zeeuws Vlaanderen.

On this occasion, though, our usual hostelry was closed, so we crossed the empty square towards Het Landhuis, the only café that appeared to be open on such a chill and blustery November day. We went in hesitantly, as there appeared to be a private function in progress, but the proprietor, who was having a smoke outside, ushered us in with a welcoming smile.

After ordering coffee, I disappeared off to euphemistically 'powder my nose', and when I got back to the small bar where we were sitting, Koos was already talking animatedly to a distinguished looking gentleman, who introduced himself as Leo. They were discussing the history of the area, and it transpired that right next door, there was an extensive museum of artefacts rescued from all the villages that had fallen under the axe of industrial development. It was not open now, Leo said, but it contained a marvellous collection, displaying the old ways of the former locals. Hearing our new friend talking so enthusiastically about the museum, the owner of the café asked if we would like to see it. He had the key and Leo was welcome to show us around.

Of course we jumped at the opportunity, so armed with the means, Leo led the way, not outside as we'd expected, but down through the basement of the Het Landhuis and unlocking an ordinary looking door, he led us into Aladdin's cave.

From the outside, the museum looks like a couple of plain and ordinary residential houses, but inside, it consists of more than thirty rooms, suggesting that several houses have been converted for the purpose. Every room is designated to a specific aspect of life and each has a full-size model of a villager, dressed in traditional clothing. There are all the standard household rooms fitted out with the furnishings and paraphernalia of yesteryear, as well as an old-fashioned iron stove and cooking implements in the kitchen. There is also a schoolroom, complete with tiny desks, blackboard and globe, a bar with old-style beer taps and optics, a room with a pair of wonderful sledges driven by huge penny-farthing style cycles, and another room devoted to preserved documents and texts, hundreds of years old.

We passed from room to room in some awe, astonished that so much had been rescued and kept so lovingly in so small a village. Leo was clearly delighted to show us, and Koos took a photo of him 'acting' as a smiling barman behind the beautiful wooden counter of the café. Eventually we made our way back into the twenty first century, and took our grateful leave.

What a special experience it had been.We were glowing with it as we stepped out into the biting wind. It was not just the pleasure of seeing the museum that had warmed us through, nor was it the good hot coffee; it was the kind hospitality of Leo and the café owners who had so spontaneously welcomed us in and and given us their time, not to mention a free tour of these gems from the past.

Lillo has drawn us to it before, and there is no doubt it will do so again. But next time, we will take some family or friends with us, because treasure like this needs to be shared.

The first Big Blogger Wedding

2010-11-18T23:48:00.009+01:00

Last week, the newly married Mr and Mrs Billingshurst, alias Invader Stu and the Girlfriend set off on their honeymoon to Eurodisney to realise their dream of being together in the place that brought them together.

Stu, the brilliant author of the fantastic Invading Holland blog wooed Simone, the author of another truly creative blog, Ladybird and Butterfly, after seeing a photo of her on Facebook when she and a friend were larking about at the Parisian theme park. Being a redhead himself and seeing the lovely Simone also had a head of coppery locks, he decided they simply had to meet. The rest, as they say of all good romances, is history, and they are (of course) about to live happily ever after.

Having met them by chance in the Oude Haven a year or so ago, and become friends in real life as well as on blog, Koos and I were not only invited to the wedding, but Koos was asked to be photographer for the day. I was happy to perform the job of back up photographer, and took a few sneak snaps of my own with my old and beloved Leica. These are the ones I've posted here.

One of the things I enjoy about blogging is the communication with people all over the world, but even better is meeting those cyber friends in person. This year alone, I've been incredibly blessed to have met Maria, Hans and Ingela, and enjoyed a wonderful second visit from our dear blog friend, Anne Marie and her Austin, but this is the very first blogger wedding I've been to, and a very charming and special marriage feast it was too. Simone was radiantly lovely and ceaselessly smiling, Stu was gracious, humorous and handsome in his dark suit, and the whole day was beautifully coreographed by their two absolutely precious ladies-in-command, Marjolein and Marije.

The marvellous Marjolein and Marije

This weekend, we're off down to Zeeland again, and maybe, just maybe, we'll have a chance to see our other blog friends, Anne and Ol who have returned from a wonderful eight months in France on their narrowboat, Wandering Snail. Their account and photos on their blog make me long to go travelling again, and yes, I know I've just been to Italy and Poland, but an extended trip to France is still up there high on my wish list. Who knows, maybe next year....

Warsaw

2010-11-07T23:16:00.004+01:00

A gathering of the Warsaw Sniffy Bum club

On my way back from Poland, I spent a few hours in Warsaw. The city was empty. It was All Saints, so everyone was at the cemeteries except dog walkers, happy to have the freedom of the parks to enjoy their 'sniffy bum' clubs. Warsaw was otherwise mine to discover. Even so, I missed the people and being a bit bored, all I could do was take photos. These are some of my favourites.

The Katovice's out of the bag

2010-11-02T00:41:00.006+01:00

Poland and Katovice. These names have had associations for me for some time as being Koos's domain. It was a world I only knew from his photos, a world seen from his own unique perspective. But this weekend I entered his world and found my own perspective, and I have to say I was totally charmed.

The weather helped 'of course' (as the Poles love to say). The whole weekend was cloaked in soft golden sunlight and a warmth that had me wishing I'd taken an entirely different set of clothes. But there were other aspects too which surprised me and endeared this 'most horrible' of Polish cities to me.

For a start, it isn't horrible at all. Never having been to Poland's gems, Krakow and Wroclaw, I had no yardstick with which to beat Katovice, and while yes, it is old and in many respects crumbling, it has a faded, and indeed, shabby elegance that I like much more than places that have been restored out of their intrinsic character.

But even that wasn't it; because what makes this city is its people. My first impression was of a lively, buzzing atmosphere. A city full of open, friendly and very decent folk. A city where there is little or maybe even none of the hostile atmosphere that normally seems to come with such industrial areas.

Take this little hoodie for example. He looks like mischief waiting to become a menace. Well, maybe in some respects he is, but the reason he is squatting on the floor here is because when I got on the tram, he immediately got up to give me his seat. No questions, no hesitation, just instant courtesy. And that's what I met everywhere we went. Smiling faces, softly spoken with ready exchanges and good manners. It seems that even if they live in graffiti covered hovels (as many do), there is still a strong core of decency in their behaviour that makes for a very happy feeling in the environment.

Still, perhaps the highlight of the weekend for me, apart from some riveting tram rides, was the amazing beauty of the celebration of the All Saints feast day. I've never thought of cemeteries as being lively places. Well you wouldn't, would you? A contradiction in terms, in fact. Not so in Poland. The end of October and beginning of November is a period of three to four days when almost the entire population, including all generations, come together as families to honour their departed loved ones. The Poles flock to the numerous graveyards with flowers, candles, brooms and gardening tools. Together, they make a ritual of cleaning the grave stones, decking them with a profusion of flowers and lighting the myriad lamps made from multi coloured glass. The grave stones glow with polish. The crysanthemums glow with rich colour and the lights gleam in the gathering dusk giving comfort to the souls lying beneath them. It is extraordinarily touching to witness, and Koos and I felt very privileged to have been there.

Unfortunately, my photos cannot tell the whole story, but I hope they give some idea of the rare beauty of this occasion. If you go to Koos's Flickr site, though, you will find some of his magical images there too.

Apart from this, the weekend was made special too by the positively riotous tram ride we took on tram 27 which seems to duck in and out of secret passage ways, behind people's gardens, up banks and through semi-rural countryside on its hopelessly wiggly rails. Then there were the old mineheads, which I always love, and the walks in and out of a gloriously sunny and balmy city.

I have the feeling this was just the tonic I needed before settling in for the inevitably wet and windy winter that we have here in the north. It feels that way, anyhow, so my thanks go firstly to Koos for introducing me to his special world, and secondly to Katovice itself for being such a welcoming host on this moving and celebratory weekend.

Hmmmmmm...what do you think happened here?

2010-10-25T14:11:00.003+02:00

Ahem...yes, you've got the first part right. This is our van. Last night in fact. Now let's see who can get creative here. How do you suppose it got into this sticky position? I shall look forward to a plethora of brilliant ideas....oh and yes, NO brownie points for the following excuses:

1. It was me driving...

2. The brakes didn't work.

3. It was me driving and I forgot to brake.

4. Sindy distracted us by jumping out the back door.

5. It was me driving and Sindy distracted me by....etc.

6. The back door opened suddenly and upended the van.

7. It was me who opened the door.

8. It was Koos's fault

9. It was me who blamed Koos anyway.

10. Koos just wanted a really good action photo so I obliged but forgot to stop.

Haha, now I've disposed of all the usual suspects, you really have to come up with something good!

Then I'll tell you what really happened :)

Vivid Vernazza, Jewel of Liguria

2010-10-13T23:04:00.002+02:00

I don't have time to write much at the moment, but I did want to share these few photos I took of Vernazza on the Cinque Terre coastal route last weekend. I did the hike with my friend, Sonja, and that is another story altogether, which I will probably tell another time.

Vernazza was definitely my favourite place (closely followed by Riomaggiore) so these pics give just an idea of how charming it is. What they don't show, though, is the wonderful liveliness of this small town; a bustling community where old people pass the time of day outside, sitting and chatting on street benches, where dogs and cats dash around leading there own busy lives, and young people call to each other across ancient balconies of yellow stone and peeling terracotta paint. I just loved it.

Another Belgium day out

2010-09-27T18:35:00.003+02:00

Despite the pouring rain, lowering grey skies and wind that set the trees swaying wildly along the roadsides, we took a trip into Belgium on Saturday to visit a much loved haunt - La Louvière.

Driving south against the clouds, we eventually passed out of the gloom and into sunshine at Lessines, a charming market town on the French side of the language border. After taking some photos of the local colour (people and things), we headed still further south to Strépy Thieu where Sindy reckoned she needed a quick dash around the great ship lift there. So to avoid the typical "s'not fair" look, we parked the car and got out.

Market stalls at Lessines

The scenery there was, as always spectacular and as luck would have it, we saw a large tanker, the Redoutable, entering the lift in the lower basin. Watching the lift in action is always fascinating and even awesome. These huge tubs that can take ships of up to 2000 tons are lifted by the downward force of equally huge counterweights, and the speed with which they do it is incredible.

We climbed to the top, 73 metres above the lower basin, and watched the Redoutable making its exit followed by a very pretty historic barge that had sneaked in behind it.

The rain then started again, but this time in earnest, so we drove into La Louvière to seek out our favourite café and have their very excellent coffee in subtly genteel surroundings. The town had its wet weather face on, though, and we were not inclined to spend much more time there, other than to do a bit of necessary shopping, so we headed out again. Driving round the area is always a treasure trove and it took us to re-visit a little house we seriously considered buying a year or so before we found our Westdorpe get away. It was good to see the place again and be reminded of why we'd been so tempted.

The return journey brought new delights, though. Driving towards the town of Ath, we found sunshine again at Soignies, another attractive place with a truly magnificent church that was founded a thousand years ago. I love this photo Koos took of the town square with the church high up on the hill behind it.

But then the real treasure of the day came. One of the pleasures of exploring Belgium is taking a dive off the main roads and seeing where it takes you. The evening light was turning the landscape to gold and the greens, yellows and browns of the meadows and ploughed fields glowed agains the vivid blue of the sky. Koos has taken some heart wrenching photos of the scenery, which you can find on his Flickr page, but below is one I took from my place in the car.

We drove through it all with mouths agape at the sheer beauty of the world. Eventually, though, we had to move on, and Ath, our final stop of the day, also proved to be a grand new discovery. What a lovely, lively place. It has both style and character and the feeling of a living, breathing urban heart. Even better, it has a river and a canal, and although I hadn't visited the town before, it has a special place in my memories. It was here on our first ever trip out together, more than nine years ago, that Koos showed me a lock on the town's outskirts. The day was very hot and the tar between the stone slabs was warm and soft, so in a fit of romantic togetherness, we put our thumbprints in it. I wonder if they are still there. I like to think so.

Time to shout about something

2010-09-23T21:20:00.002+02:00

And that something is Koos's photography as revealed here in this book. These abstract art photos were all taken round the shipyard where the Hennie H is having its bottom plating done. Koos has the artist's eye to such a degree he can even find beauty in puddles full of oily water, flaking paint on empty cans, the daubs where shipyard workers have cleaned their brushes and let's not forget, lumps of rusty metal. They are all here and in Koos's lens become images of great beauty.

He so deserves some recognition and success with his photography, it would be fantastic if our blog friends would spread the word, and maybe..... even buy the book.

Summer 2010 - over

2010-09-17T23:34:00.009+02:00

This will go down in my memory as the summer that wasn't. That sounds dramatic and negative, but for me, for us, it's been the case.

There have been some highlights though, and I'd like to remember them here pictorially

The day in June we found the tiny ferry going to nowhere..and took it to the other side

The World Cup taking over our harbour for nigh on a month

Koos's birthday, 30 June, with his son Kasper and Mo and Craig

A lovely July evening with friends Jitze and Manette when they stopped their travels in Breskens, Zeeuws Vlaanderen (about 35 kms from my litle house)

Then Mo arrived home with Charlie boy.

On 22 July, we had a magical day out in Seclin and Mons en Pévêle in northern France. Here Koos is taking a photo of the canal side.

The big event in July was the arrival of Anne Marie and Austin with whom we spent three fabulous days

At the end of July, Mo and Craig came to help us with the Hennie Ha.

And finally, in early August, my sister came to visit and took this photo of Koos and I in our favourite Belgian village of Sautour.

The rest of August, the month of my holiday from work, was sadly a wash-out in every way, and the only day worth remembering was a day trip we took to Oostende on the 28th, where Koos took some of his most beautiful photos ever. On the way, we stopped at a place called Lisswege, supposedly the prettiest village in Belgium. Here it is.

This looks like quite a lot for one summer, doesn't it? Maybe I shouldn't complain after all. It was just August in the end that could be struck from the record and wouldn't be missed. For my part anyway.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone. Autumn is on its way and the changing colours will be accompanied by those wonderful smells of damp earth, falling leaves and the tang of frosty mornings. I find it melancholy but beautiful too.

On the way to being the Bionic Woman

2010-09-14T12:40:00.003+02:00

Cataract one is done...yay...I've been waiting for this since July. By the end of the year,after the second one's done, I'll be able to see again. That will be such a relief.

Taking Stock

2010-09-07T13:46:00.006+02:00

Well. I've reactivated my blog mainly because I miss my special group of bloggie friends. I'm still off FB, and don't know when I'll put that back.

The thing is there's a whole heap of stuff going on in our lives at the moment, not all of which are pleasant; and sometimes you just want to batten down the hatches and hide from the world. Never having been one to 'talk', it's not in my nature to thrash things out in public, so I hope my dear blog pals will understand that I don't do so now. It all sounds as if I'm looking for sympathy, but I'm not at all. I'm fine and I know this phase will pass - it really was a simple case of being too tied up in these other things to worry about blogs and social networks, and I just got the hell in with the whole internet scene anyway.

Interestingly, after reading Anne Marie's blog where she lists the goods and bads of Facebook, which she's just joined, I am finding I don't miss it at all, and may decide to stay away. It's just that there are so many friends there who don't come to blogland, and yes, that's hard. I'd miss the contact. Still, I will decide sooner or later I suppose.

In the meantime, hoping you're all well. I probably won't be blogging all that much in the next weeks, because work is also piling up, but I will be here and I will be following yours too....so watch out :-)

PS I've added a couple of updates of the Vereeniging which I've now moved on to again. Strangely Blogger just won't accept one of them, so I'll try again later. The drawers beneath the bed are my latest creation out of some old wood I've been keeping for some years now. They match my kists in the lounge area which are made of the same wood.

Bits and bobs

2010-08-26T22:44:00.004+02:00

Oh dear, life is running away with me again, and my poor blog is suffering...well, it probably isn't, that's just me talking nonsense. The thing is, it's really hard to keep track of what's going on at the moment, so let me just list a few things.

Firstly, I am almost ready to move back on to the Vereeniging. That's a big plus, although now I am down in Zeeland for a week, so the proper move will have to wait until I go back.

Secondly, those of you who have seen my Facebook status will know that my holiday plans were severely interrupted by some mindless, drunken idiot sticking his boot through my windscreen, costing me days of my break, not to mention a few hundred euros in repairs that I can ill afford right now. Something of a minus here, I think you'll agree.

Then, we are still really busy with the Hennie Haha, which I now call it since this little boat seems determined to have the last laugh on us. Anyhow, the decks are all scaled now and today I went over them with a rotary steel brush attached to an angle grinder (how I love power tools!) and managed to wear the brush down to nothing in the process...haha...see? Still, they look good and are pretty much ready to be painted as soon as the rain decides to stop..one more plus.

Another plus is the amazing photography Koos has been doing at the shipyard. I call it container art. If you haven't seen his latest photos, just do yourselves a favour and go to his Flickr page. The pictures he's publishing of images he sees on the old containers in the yard are just fantastic.

The final plus is that hopefully I'll have some time to write in the next week, and that I'm really looking forward to, so let's see now - on balance, there are more plusses aren't there? All I need now is some sunshine to brighten up my spirits!

I'll leave you with a photo of the Vereeniging's new sofa uncovered here to contrast with my beautiful Sindy. After taking the pic, I bought a couple of throws to protect it from my very black dog.

There's also a neat movie that Koos made here with music by the wonderful Kate and Anna McGarrigle

What one does on one's holiday....

2010-08-16T15:52:00.006+02:00

....if one is foolish enough to own a very old boat; even worse if one decides with one's other half to share another even older boat that needs even more fixing up.

The photos below are of the foredeck of the Hennie Ha which I have spent the weekend needle scaling to get all the old paint off. Last weekend I did the the gangboord on the starboard side, and I guess next week, I'll be doing the same thing on the port side. A needle scaler, for those of you who haven't heard of them, is run on compressed air and is a 'gun' stacked full of steel needles which vibrate like crazy when the machine is in operation. It does a brilliant job of knocking off anything that can come free of the steel, and is a super speedy paint stripper.

One needle scaled gangboord

Portion of foredeck I did today.

The famous needle scaler, without which none of this would be possible.

The poor little boat looks a mess at the moment as we strip, sand and scale, but at least when it's painted again, the paint will stay on and not need doing again for a year or two.

I would have gone on today, but rain stopped play. We are having a week of really horrid weather. I do hope it cheers up soon, or August won't have been a good month for my holiday. I'm off back to Rotterdam tomorrow to do some more on the Vereeniging...yes, I know, I know but that's what having old boats is all about.

Hope you are all enjoying your August.

Too much to tell so just a little taster

2010-08-10T23:15:00.004+02:00

Life has been rather busy recently. There's far too much for just one post and as I'm more than a bit tired right now, I'll settle for just a photo of the Vereeniging back in its place next to the Luxor and some pics of the nearly finished re-vamp of the interior.

I still have to find some suitable furniture, namely a sofa and a table for eating/sitting at and last but not least, all my personal belongings. I did have furnishings in it before, of course, but they have all found comfortable corners in the little house, so I'm loath to move them all again. In fact I'm planning to make a sofa and a table as my requirements are rather specific. More on that later. For now, see my newly painted but rather empty home!

By the way, you might have noticed my blog has its old name back again.

A 'klein' weekend

2010-07-26T22:31:00.004+02:00

Klein in Dutch mean small, but our Klein weekend was anything but. It was great and full and lively and so full of laughs that I shall treasure it in my memory for many a long month.

Klein is of course the surname of our wonderful blogger friend Anne Marie. She and her absolutely dear husband Austin came to visit us for the weekend before leaving for Schipol this evening and Canada tomorrow morning.

We had such a special time with them and talked ourselves into a deep and enduring friendship. Sindy adored them both.

On Saturday, when they arrived, we chatted a while and then went out for a late lunch, then talked more before Austin cooked us the most fabulous meal in the evening.

Yesterday dawned wet and windy, our first rain for weeks, but a shame for them. Still, we took ourselves off on the Fast ferry to Dordrecht and showed them round its delightful historic centre before heading back to Rotterdam. We ended the day in probably the best Italian restaurant in town, and Austin, our gourmet guide was suitably impressed. The atmosphere there is intimate - a real Italian family restaurant. In fact, it's the place my girls took me on my birthday, so it's rapidly becoming a favourite.

Today, we took a stroll over to see Mo and Craig on their ship, and then spent the afternoon sharing stories, music and laughter again until it was time to make supper and for the two of them to catch the train to Schipol. I felt quite choked to see them go. Next time, I really hope it will be our turn to visit them, but whatever the case, Anne Marie and Austin have become real friends, not just for now, but for life. Be safe you two! Lots and lots of love go with you xxx

A doggy interlude

2010-07-16T23:30:00.003+02:00

Today, we had a memorable day for two reasons, one of which was the Vereeniging came home to the Oude Haven after spending a year in the neighbouring Haringvliet. Everything went well, the electric starter worked like a dream, and we arrived back in our old home without incident. It's good to be back...

The second reason was that Sindy (s'not fair) bin met Charlie (I'm the cutest) pup for the first time today, and as the pictures below show, no problems ensued. Much to our relief, I must admit. I have to say it was largely thanks to Charlie, who adopts a 'roll over and die' attitude at the drop of a hat. He came back to the Luxor with us and decided the best thing to do was to pretend to die thoroughly. That way he could have a good kip without interference from his big Aunty sin.

Charlie (i'm a dead dog) pup enjoying a rest on the Luxor.

Charlie (i'm the cutest) pup during our walk today.

Sin and Charlie a.k.a Little and large or Black and Tan, waiting to cross the road

And these pics below are a couple that Koos took of Sindy today when we were just about to go out. She has this look of desperation that we are rather used to now. It's the "you're not going to leave me are you?" look. Koos has captured her expession so perfectly, I had to post these too.

Lulls

2010-07-13T20:57:00.005+02:00

Sometimes there's so much going on I don't know what to write because I can't say it all. It feels like a lull, but in fact it's quite the opposite.

I've posted so much about my leaky bottom of late, I'm sure everyone's sick of the photos of the same old view, so I'm a bit reluctant to put up any more now. The same is true of the Hennie H. However, we have been working very hard on our respective projects, and I'm pleased to say that today I finally got the bed back together and have made a good start on painting. Pictures will come when there's more to show.

I think quite enough has already been said about the World Cup, and I'm very glad it's now over. I'm a bit tired of all the lambasting the Dutch team have had about the way they played, though. I think much of it is unfair and way too harsh. Since I'm neither Dutch nor Spanish and have no vested interest either way, I think I can say that!

I always used to enjoy following Wimbledon, but I don't even know who was playing this year, because of the WC, and I've only just heard that Serena Williams won the women's title. Shame. Not that she won of course, but that I missed it all...

I've also missed following the cricket news...and was thrilled to hear England did so well against the Aussies in the one day series.

The weather. Now there's a good subject! It's been pretty good this summer so far, with near tropical temperatures. I've just left four of my favourite people having a drink on the terraces over the way to let Sin out of an oven-like ship. I was sorry to leave them, but would have been even sorrier to find my pooch shrivelled up with the heat.

The four concerned are marvellous Marion (whose marathon runs I've blogged about before), up for a quick visit from Spain; Miriam, another friend whose work conceiving, building and running a centre for vocational education in Ghana is amazing. I admire her so much. Then there's Jacq, a former much-loved colleague at one of the language centres. She lives here but I don't know why, I never see her except when others come to visit. My fault entirely. Too busy with these boats I suppose. Then finally, there's the incredible Eveline, another colleague, but with a great big difference. Just for starters, she is the only person I've ever met with a degree in rock music, and now she says she's off to France on Friday, but not in your normal way. She's cycling there via the Ardennes. Good luck Evie!! Really special friends, all of them.

Marion and Jacq

Jacq and Miriam

Evie and Miriam

Tomorrow is Jodie's birthday, so the family are descending on me here. Koos is actually extracting himself from Zeeland to join the fun. Another big event is that Mo and Craig have the most gorgeous cocker spaniel puppy called Charlie who we have to try and introduce to Sindy at some stage. Since she's not known for her sweetness and light with other dogs, we'll have to aim for a quick course in desensitization

There are lots of other things going on too, but the main aim in my life at the moment is to have the Vereeniging ready of Anne Marie and Austin's visit at the end of next week. I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

As I've sat here on the back deck typing, the temperature has cooled and I even have goose bumps on my arms. Perhaps this is the moment to stop rambling and go inside. Time for some chores, methinks!

The first goal

2010-07-06T21:39:00.002+02:00

If you play this video clip I filmed just after the first goal, and turn the sound up to triple the volume, you'll have an inkling of the uproar in the harbour tonight. Yes, folks it's the semi final between NL and Uruguay and of course, I support our guys in their endeavours...of course I do...(pinches arm..yes, Val, you do),although I don't need to watch it or hear it quite like this to give my support. Even so, I have to say it don't I? Go Oranje Go!!!!

Wish me luck when it's over. It's going to be chaos whether they win or lose....

Progress and Piet

2010-07-01T19:10:00.006+02:00

But before I tell you what that progress is, meet Piet. He is our harbour turtle, and if you look closely, you can see his small round shape on the brick of white polystyrene in the photo here. This is his house, which is hooked up to the bows of my neighbour's ship. After a hard day's swimming and entertaining the tourists, he returns here every afternoon for a rest. Every now and then people threaten to rescue him, and when one day, I told a group of boys that he lived there, they looked at me as if I were batty. We love him, and until the winter, when he will need to be rescued, we hope he'll be able to enjoy his freedom in Turtle heaven.

Now for the progress on the Vereeniging. As of this afternoon, the floor and walls in the water tank area have all been replaced, the water tanks themselves are clean, and tomorrow, Jodie and I hope to be able to put them back in their place with a few minor modifications.

Then I'll be able to tackle the last part of the bottom below the bed. I think that in another week, I should be ready to start painting and restoring the place to normal. Well at least I hope so!..Only three weeks now till Anne Marie and Austin arrive.....yippee!

A port in a storm

2010-06-24T21:50:00.004+02:00

Normally that means somewhere peaceful and quiet doesn't it? Well, this is my twist on the phrase. This is our 'port'(Koningspoort) in a storm of football fever.

I don't own a TV, but even if I did, I wouldn't need one. From the back deck I can hear every gasp, groan and roar of excitement as the Netherlands team plays good and bad shots, misses the ball, brings on a new player...you name it, every moment is recorded in tumultuous sound.

The pics below are my view this evening as I sit on the Luxor and enjoy the evening air on our own terras. Eat your heart out Koosje! I must say I am enjoying the Luxor's privacy this year. I'm just sorry Koos isn't here to enjoy it too. Still, I haven't been without company and have had two very pleasant evenings with friends and neighbours who have come to enjoy the luxury of our watery amenities. Now all I need is for the World Cup to be over....after all, now SA is out......oh alright.... I will support Holland now...... Go, Oranje, go!!!!

Lows and Highs

2010-06-22T20:41:00.004+02:00

Two important happenings to report in the smaller scheme of things, being my life: the first is the progress on my bottom....Yes, I know I've worn that joke a bit thin now, but the thing is it really is the bottom of my ship I'm talking about and not the floor, which is not the bottom. See?

Well, to put that behind me (there I go again), I have made a lot of progress, although not as much as I would have liked, I must confess. I was really hoping to have the floor completely back in by now and the water tanks fixed. Unfortunately, the whole length of the bottom of the hull has been affected by the leaky tank, so it's meant scraping, cleaning and oiling much more than I had anticipated. What it amounts to then is that with the help of Mo, Jodie and Koos at various times, I've done more than I thought I'd ever have to do but there's still more to be done....ok, enough of that now. The bottom line (:-))is that there's still a way to go before I can start painting and re-installing fittings and furnishings. Oh by the way, this was the low part as you might have guessed by now.

The high of the week was on Sunday night when I went to see Crowded House for the second time. They were playing at a large venue in Amsterdam, and thanks to the kindness of a friend of mine who organised the tickets (thanks Suze!!), we were in the front row. Mo came too and we had the great pleasure of watching Neil Finn and co at their very best. What a fantastic concert it was. Their interaction with the audience was so spontaneous and entertaining, it made for a huge amount of feelgood atmosphere. They even had a couple of kids from the audience up on stage with them, racing Mark Hart from one side of the stage to the other, and playing instruments with them too.

The funniest thing was that one of the little boys could actually play the piano and totally de-railed everything when he started playing Bohemian Rhapsody. Queen at a Crowded House concert? They took it as they should - with wry good humour and plenty of fun. All in all, really great stuff with lots of laughs,not to mention all those gorgeous Finn songs and a great performance by all concerned. That was a real high.

Set List
1. I Feel Possessed
2. Saturday Sun
3. Private Universe
4. Say That Again
5. Fall At Your Feet
6. Amsterdam
7. We Need a Prime Minister
8. Either Side of the World
9. Even a Child
10. Four Seasons in One Day (Snippet of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at end)
11. Nails in My Feet
12. Isolation (with Sharon Finn)
13. Message To My Girl (Split Enz cover)
14. Chocolate Cake
15. Something So Strong
16. Locked Out
17. Don't Dream It's Over
18. Distant Sun
19. It's Only Natural
20. Encore:
20. Weather With You
21. She Called Up
22. Better Be Home Soon

2010-06-21T10:13:00.004+02:00

Just to say I have now deleted my last post, as it was written for those who knew Gypsy and Neil but are not members of Facebook. I think it is now time to let our friend do her grieving in private. Thank you all for your kind comments. I know for sure that Gypsy really values the friendship and support shown by everyone who knew them both. It has meant the world to her.

Ferry, cross the mersey...

2010-06-14T18:28:00.004+02:00

Well, not quite, but certainly across the water.

To put you in these pictures, so to speak, Koos and I were walking in a very rural part of Belgium on Saturday afternoon when we came across this tiny ferry. We didn't realise what it was at first, but as it started floating out into the waterway, we noticed the ropes that were attaching it to each side of the canal. Fascinated we decided to climb in and cross to the other side...

It was easy. All you had to do was pull on these

Weeheee, and over we went.....ferry, cross the water, cos this land's the place I love...lalalala..

Once out on the other side, we left it to float free till the next chance walker came along...pretty, no, lovely country, isn't it?

And then, on with our walk amongst the daisies and the new green growth.

I have to say we haven't been so charmed in ages. It was just so sweet, and someone obviously cares for it. It's clean, dry and very very blue. I love it that it's just there for any chance walker to come across. Belgium is the home of the surreal, and this is just another part of it, don't you think?

My Hoop

2010-06-10T19:02:00.004+02:00

The roef where I lived. This was the only habitable part of the Hoop when I stayed on board

This is the Hoop. Well, that's not what it's called anymore but it is the Hoop, my Hoop, the beautiful Luxe Motor I so happily lived on for a year and a half between January 2001 and August 2002. To my mind, it is still the most elegant and lovely motor barge I have seen and known and when I look at it, I am filled with warm, nostalgic memories.

I dare not go inside now. The lovely roef where I lived, which was all so original, has been ripped out and replaced by a new version, re-modelled as a kitchen (so I believe). I can hardly bear to think of it. Apparently it has been very well done, but even so, it seems wrong to me to take out all the lovely old panelled cupboards and fittings, even it it has been replaced in the same style.

I know I'm being sentimental, but it is also about the history of the barge, not just my feelings. Nevertheless, seeing it on the slipway here is still good, and I know the people who bought it from Philip care for it very well. They haven't committed the sacrilege I have with the Vereeniging in replacing the old engine with a newer version, for the Hoop still has its original Kromhout. It sounds wonderful too.

The photos above show it as it is today with its new name, but to me it will always be my Hoop, the Hoop that gave me such hope.

Updates and downsides

2010-05-30T16:48:00.003+02:00

The news isn't encouraging all round, I'm afraid, all excepting the wonderful sound of my Vereeniging's engine starting as I press the button and it roars into life - bliss!

The update on my wet bottom isn't good though ;-P. My wonderful daughters came and helped me yesterday. We scraped and cleaned the rust off the area I had pulled up in front of what we discovered were two leaky water tanks (now emptied, thanks to lots of assistance from Koos, too).

In fact, we were all ready to go with the vlak vet, the thick black grease that we use to protect our particular type of bottom. Then I had a thought. Maybe I should check further along the floor, and so Jodie and I pulled up another two boards running down the middle of the barge. I should mention that all these boards were originally screwed down into the ribs, but what with getting wet and all, the screws had rusted, which meant destroying the wood around them to get them out. Still, I said to Jodie (not once but several times)floorboards are cheaper than welding, and so we persisted - and I'm glad we did. The water had crept further than I would ever have thought, and now I have to do the same thing again with the next section....let it dry, scrape it clean and grease it. The next section after that will probably have to be done too, which will be more difficult as there are cupboards built in over the floor, and I can't take all of them out. I will take up another middle board, and hope for the best...floorboards are cheaper than welding...floorboards are.....

The next section I've removed

A close up of the yukky bottom still to be dried and cleaned

And this is what it looks like after it's been dried and scraped free of rust

The other sad news is that the Hennie H was as rotten as we feared it would be and all the inspector could do was sympathise. Everything Koos took off has to be replaced with thicker steel. Still, he seems to be reasonably upbeat about things, as according to his calculations, we should still be able to manage the repairs. The downside is that we cannot do this ourselves, and professional welders costs a lot of money. The negotiations begin tomorrow morning!

Turning tides and all that

2010-05-22T19:49:00.005+02:00

This week has been an eventful one in our harbour. The tide has turned for me in a very positive way, but more of that later. The turning tide was not so favourable to one of our dearest friends. In fact talk up about ups and downs! The photo above might seem a bit obscure when you first look at it. Look closer and you will probably see what looks like a mast sticking out of the water. Well, this is what I saw when I arrived back from Zeeland last Monday. There was something not quite right about the picture, I'm sure you'll agree. Masts are usually fixed on top of boats which, in theory, should be floating on the water not sitting under it.

To cut a long story short (ok ok, I know I can go on a bit), the mooring ropes on our friend's tugboat got stuck when the tide was out, so when it came back in, the boat did not go up with it, but tipped over to one side and the water (naturally)flowed in. The tugboat (even more naturally) stayed put on the bottom - hence this strange sight that met my eyes. It has now been recovered but not without quite some damage, and that's the saddest part. It had just been largely restored.

On an up note, a new era has arrived for me with my Vereeniging, because the engine has finally been electrified (I keep writing electriFED, which I quite like as an alternative, but suppose I should get it right sometime). The old Samofa now has a starter motor fitted by the wonderful Bas, our superb harbour electrical engineer. It's so exciting for me to know I can finally get going on my own. Now I just have to find the courage to actually go somewhere on my own - even if it's just back to my old mooring in the Oude Haven!

Lastly, the tide is increasingly turning for the Hennie Ha. Koos is still making grand progress with stripping its bottom (now now, you lot!). He hopes to be finished by next Thursday. Then the real acid test will come, because this is when the insurance inspector has been booked. Hold fingers, toes and thumbs everyone. We are praying the repairs needed won't be too costly.

All in all, then, we are going with the flow and running with the tide. Hopefully any further turning it does will be in our favour!

55-55-55

2010-05-20T09:02:00.003+02:00

Any guesses as to what these numbers mean to me in 2010?

The photo below is of my daughters and their respective husbands and myself of course at a lovely Italian restaurant they took me to last night to celebrate my birthday.

It was really Italian and the waiters were all totally charming. So sad Koos wasn't with us though. He was bravely soldiering on in Zelzate with the Hennie H.

The last picture is one I've been meaning to publish for some time. It is a beautiful collage that Stefan, a.k.a Bookworm, sent me for Christmas. Knowing how much I love Coldplay, he printed his photos from their concert and made this for me. I was so touched then and to make things even more special, he sent me a card for my birthday with another photo on it from the same concert. What a very dear soul he is....thank you, Stefan!

Koos's progress

2010-05-15T21:54:00.004+02:00

Two days and two posts...what's happening? Well, summer is coming and that's when we get busy with the boats. Added to that, my work gets back to more reasonable levels, and I actually have time to think about things other than lesson plans and student assessments. I'm still going to be quite busy but nothing like as hectic as it has been up to now.

Anyhow, the ongoing story of the Hennie haha (our shared project)is always lurking, and while I was in Rotterdam teaching last week, Koos was in Zelzate grinding away at the doubling plates that have to come off the Hennie Ha for its insurance inspection.

To cut a long story short, the previous owner replaced the bottom with good 6mm steel, but only doubled the curvy bits along the sides. This he did with 3mm steel. Big mistake. The insurance company requires a minimum thickness of 3mm and their testing machines will only measure the outer layer. With a few years of degradation, then the thickness measured was less than the necessary 3mm, so they told us all this doubling had to come off so they could measure the real thickness off the original hull.

We are holding fingers, toes and thumbs that the old iron hull will measure up. Meanwhile, Koos's labours can be seen in the pics here. He has been grinding for all he is worth, and has done a great job of stripping the dreaded doubling away. It will be several days before he has finished this stage, but I think he's doing really well. It's very hard work and needs lots of stamina and patience, so hats off Koosje. You're the hero of the week!

The Vereeniging's new face

2010-05-14T19:17:00.005+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, Mo and Craig moved off the Vereeniging and onto their own ship the Marion Aagje. The wonderful part of that is that I get the Vereeniging back again, and also have the chance to give it a new look before moving back on board.

This last week, I've been gathering tools and material ready for the big smoosh up, but yesterday, I hit the first glitch. Unfortunately, the water pump had sprung a leak and because it is hidden behind a wall, no one noticed it. The water seeped inexorably under the insulation beneath the carpet, through the floorboards and below to the bottom.

Yesterday, while I was sanding the floor, getting it ready to be painted, I found the results. Sadly, a couple of the floorboards have rotted, so today was spent firstly buying some new wood to replace them and secondly, extracting a very soggy board and some even soggier insulation that was underneath it. Now, I shall leave it all to dry out before replacing the two boards that are affected. Luckily the weather is warming up so I'm hoping it won't take too long.

The photos below are ones Koos took just before we took up the rotten wood (strange to see it so empty), but you can see the patch I have been prodding at!

Here is a photo of what it looked like before I handed over to Mo and Craig.

Watch out for Stage 2 next week.....if I get the time, that is. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to be rushing this job. It's great not to have to live in the mess while I'm doing it!

Photos of Helsinki

2010-05-09T20:58:00.003+02:00

Today has been satisfying in many ways. I gave my little Vespa its first spin of the year, which is always good for the soul. Then I managed to do a good bit of gardening and weed clearance, during which I found a baby Lilac tree with one beautiful bell of rich purple flowers. After that, I took myself off for a run, which always feels great after the event, even if I sweat and struggle my way round my own Westdorpe circuit. Lastly, I've managed to upload some of my Helsinki photos to Picasa, so here is the link. I still have the ones of the lovely walk Maria and I made around Suomenlinna island to show you, but that's for next time. Now I have to finish the lesson planning I started this morning....

Strange happening with Blogger

2010-05-08T11:43:00.002+02:00

last night I posted a new short piece on my writing blog, but now I notice it is dates 30 April, a week out of date. Very strange. some glitch on the server maybe, or something I've done (more likely). Anyhow for those who like to read it, there's another short offering. It proceeds slowly! Hopefully, the summer will give me more time to write more!

Vaasa in glorious colour

2010-05-05T19:46:00.003+02:00

Well, here is the link to my pics of Vaasa. The photos of Helsinki will follow when I've managed to persuade our very slow server to upload them.

I really liked Vaasa a lot. It reminded me of Bloemfontein in South Africa with its wide, clean tree-lined streets and fine neo classical buildings playing neighbour to the lovely old traditional wooden structures. The only thing that marred it was the rather numerous sixties apartment blocks, but then they're everywhere aren't they?

I'm Finished!

2010-05-03T22:35:00.002+02:00

These are just a few of the photos I took when I was with Hans and Ingela in Vaasa. I have loads more and will put them on a Picasa slideshow when I get home, but these few all say something about what struck me during my visit.

The windmill..well, I suppose that's obvious. It's just so cute, and the fascinating thing about this type of mill is that the whole thing turns to face the wind direction, not just the top part. Given my personal provenance, I just had to take a pic for comparison purposes, but the cuteness factor came very high on the list too.

The boat and boathouse...well no prizes there for guessing why I needed pics of those, but Hans and Ingela in front of their own boathouse..well, that's special. It's all so charming, and so safe, they do lock it, but the key is left in full view of anyone with eyes to see!

Then there is the water tower behind the other little wooden house (by the way, the whole village has wooden houses this colour and even the church is the same..talk about colour coordinated!). The water tower, though, is for Koos, as is the final picture of Hans and Ingela's wonderful wood burning stove. It is really amazing. The house is warm, but you hardly notice where the heat is coming from.

I'll post more about my trip soon, but when I get back to Rotterdam. For now, I am, as I said, Fin-ished...and I'm off t sleep my last night in Finland..Nighty night all! xx

While I was at the station

2010-05-01T23:33:00.002+02:00

I sneaked these pics with my phone while I was waiting for my train to Vaasa today. The white hats were still everywhere I went so it seems to be a mayday thing as well as a Vappu thing. The trip to Vaasa was long (four and a half hours), but I got to see some of Finland while I was at it. There are lots of lakes, lots of trees and scores of gorgeous wooden houses, all painted different colours. Love them!

Hans and Ingela were at the station to meet me, and have been so incredibly kind. They took me home and gave me a lovely meal and I met both their sons who are refreshingly open and uninhibited. Really nice boys, both of them. We sat and talked about everything and anything and I heard about their nightmare trip home from the UK, courtesy of the volcanic ash. Talk about intrepid! Now I am back at the hotel, a curious place where you check in with a door code, and everything is arranged remotely so you don't see any real people at all except other guests. Amazing. Still, it's all comfortable and once again, I have internet on tap. Tomorrow, Hans and Ingela are taking me on a tour, so I know it'll be another great day. Watch this space!

Helsinki, sunshine and Maria in one day...magic

2010-04-30T21:41:00.002+02:00

Today has been a very memorable one. I have spent it in the company of the very special and lovely Maria in a beautifully sunny and charming Helsinki. I can't upload any photos today as I forgot to bring a cable or card reader with me, but as soon as I'm back in Rotterdam, I will post lots!

We had a truly lovely time walking first round the city harbour (water and boats always good), then through some very elegant tree lined streets (rather Parisian in style), finishing up at a delightful Italian restaurant where we had lunch served by an equally delightful patron. After that, we took the ferry to Suomelinna Island (I hope I've spelt that right) and walked round the old fortifications along its coastal path. The sun shone through the mist onto peaceful waters, and we watched the big sea going ferries pulling out of the harbour. It is really very beautiful and wonderfully peaceful....except for the occasional throngs of students already beginning their celebration of 'Vappu', a very singularly Finnish festival to mark Walpurgis night. The festival itself is celebrated in several countries, but the video link I've given here is the Finnish version (thanks for the link, Maria). Here's another link to its history.

When we arrived back in Helsinki, we actually watched and witnessed the event shown in the film clip, and it was great to see all the generations mingling in the city centre with their white caps on in honour of the occasion.

As the festivities then continue into a series of all night parties, Maria and I beat a retreat and took the tram out of the city. Probably a wise decision judging by the number of police vans I saw as I walked the last stretch back to the hostel. It looked very much as if they were preparing for a busy night!

Tomorrow I'm off to Vaasa to visit Hans and Ingela. More on that later...

Yay!!! The Hennie Ha is 'vaarklaar' once again!

2010-04-25T14:21:00.003+02:00

We've done it at last! This morning Koos and I fitted the steering mechanism back onto the HH after having fixed it so thoroughly there can now be no possibility that it will come apart again.

We took it for a test around the harbour here in Sas van Gent, and were thrilled that everything worked properly with no failures.

So after a good wash down and spring smoosh up, the little 'bootje' looks quite respectable. A closer look would reveal there's a lot of paintwork that needs doing, but we'll come to that soon. First a call to the yard for a spot on the slipway....are we happy or what!

PS For those of you who are confused, 'vaarklaar' means 'ready to go' in boat terms. Another point some of the newer readers might be wondering is where does this boat fit in? Well, Koos has his own barge, the Luxor, I have the Vereeniging (which Mo and Craig have just moved off) and we share the HH, which is much smaller and was intended for travelling on and not for living. Owing to aforesaid steering problems, we haven't done much travelling as yet...um, call that none, in fact..but soon, soon, I can feel it....

Adventures in our watery world

2010-04-19T00:37:00.010+02:00

Operational discussions and the result: the engine is out

Koos and I manoeuvring the mast

These last two pics show the Vereeniging and the Marion Aagje first next to Nico's Luxe Motor (above) and secondly back home (below). You get to se what they look like from both ends this way!

So....we've been playing at boats again. This time, the Vereeniging was acting as tug boat for the Marion Aagje, Mo and Craig's cute little tjalk.

The only snag was the Vereeniging only has 25 horses in her engine room, which isn't really a lot when you are dragging an extra fifty tons of boat around. What with the current flowing in the wrong direction, and us having to go with the flow rather than against it (where you have more control), things got a bit hectic. First we got stuck between two ships while doing a three point turn (ship at bow end very cool, charming and relaxed - ship at stern end less so), then we managed to dunk a rowing boat under water (luckily it re-surfaced, full of water but without damage) and then we were faced with a large party ship coming in the opposite direction, who didn't seem inclined to wait until we'd lurched our way through the bridge. Still no harm done in the end. We bumped into the next two bridges in good dodgem style, but still managed to struggle our way to our destination, being friend Nico's barge.

The reason for all this adventuring was that he has a strong crane, and Mo and Craig had an appointment to have their oversized engine lifted out, their winch lifted on, and their mast hoisted out of the water and put in position too. The mast had been lying in the water next to the Luxor, so one of the pics shows Koos and I pulling it round to the crane with my rowing boat.

Today, we took them back again but luckily this time the current was in our favour, and no dodging other barges this time. Now, though, I really understand why the terms 'barging about' and 'barge into' came into being. This is also why 'barge poles' come in so handy too!

When all's said and done, however, the two little barges look pretty together, don't they? Shame the Marion Aagje has to go back over the river to its mooring in the yacht harbour. We'll miss Mo and Craig now they've moved. They've become harbour people in their own right since they've lived on the Vereeniging. Still, the upside is that now I can move back onto my ship again ;-)

Westdorpe fun run

2010-04-10T19:27:00.008+02:00

Just to prove I really did it! Koos took these photos this afternoon at the finish of the Westdorpe fun run. Okay, it was only five kms, but Jodie will vouch for the fact that I didn't stop once. True!

Of course you might notice there aren't many people behind us at the end....

Barry, Jo's husband, has legs that come up to my shoulders (he is almost 2 metres tall), so of course he came in just a tad earlier. And I am fully aware Jo would have finished earlier but held back for my sake, bless her, but I still managed it in 33 mins, Not too bad for a fifty plus-er. methinks.

Now of course, I'm inspired and want to do more...Weekends will never be the same again...poor Koos.

Hic hic hiccup with the Hennie Ha

2010-04-03T23:27:00.005+02:00

With adrenalin running like a flood in spate, we started the Hennie Ha's engine today ready for the big 'test run'. Giving ourselves and the old motor time to settle down, we cleaned the little ship and waited patiently for the oil to flow warmly through its old veins. Then at last we were away - to test the dreaded steering that has given Koos his full quota of grey hairs this past year and a half. 'Maak lossen!' he called, and I threw off the line that held us safely to the shore. Now there was nothing between us and the 'big deep' except a couple of crossed fingers.

Backing out, all looked and sounded good. Pirouetting round, the HH turned as if on a coin and Koos gave me the thumbs up. We headed calmly up to the end of the harbour, to the junction where it meets the mighty "Ghent naar Terneuzen Zeekanaal". And then it went....oooh nooo!

There we were with the wind blowing us briskly towards the bank and no steering. Gone again. But being the master of manoeuvring, Koos knows a few tricks and after a few more graceful pirouettes, a confused looking yacht owner watched us moor up to some poles that define the end of the berths in our harbour.

Koos's head disappeared into the steering hatch, and a few minutes later, he looked out smiling. "I can fix it" said the smile. Koos just went to fetch his tools. Ten minutes after that, the steering was working again, so we untied and not wishing to tempt fate any further, made our way back to our own berth.

The long and the short of it is that there are still a couple of adjustments to be made to the steering mechanism before it can be pronounced fully fit again. The comforting part about today's exercise was that firstly, the engine ran like a dream for the first time in ages, and secondly, Koos was able to tighten up whatever bolts had come loose to make us mobile again.

All in all, not quite the raging success we'd been hoping for, but hey, we're on the way! And yes, it was really good to be out on the water again. That long summer trip to France is beginning to look quite promising after all...

Ha Ha Hennie Ha

2010-03-28T14:39:00.005+02:00

The rather fuzzy photo above was taken on the Hennie H the last time I went anywhere on the little Snik. It was 15 September 2008. Today, we have the very real prospect of setting off in it again, because today, Koos finally managed to get the engine running properly.

After much technical head scratching, he triumphed over the steering problems last week, so this week's achievement felt really good. I acted as general 'gofer' passing spanners, screwdivers and courage, while protecting Koos from the rain by holding a tarpaulin over the engine hatch. Guess who got wet instead .....

No guarantees yet, because next week, we'll give it a full test run and see how everything works. If all goes well, we'll then have to make a date with the yard in Zelzate to get the work on the bottom done...is this sounding familiar?...Ah well, I'm hoping that by August we'll have our scheepje back in the water again and ready to roll...or should i rather say sail?

Fully certified

2010-03-21T00:29:00.002+01:00

And no, that's not as in insane...although of course some of you might quite legitimately think so..

No, the truth is that yesterday I received my TEFL certificate...yay!! At long last I am qualified for the job I have been doing for the last nine years..it's almost a relief in a way. Like coming out of the closet...

In the past, I've always had that fear that someone would decide I was a fraud because I didn't have the right pieces of paper...but no more! I can hold my head up now and not sneak out when people start TEFL talking around me. No more flushes of embarrassment when friends compare course experiences and teaching terms..I can do it too! Now I can discuss boomerang and patchwork ESA lesson plans with the best of them...hehe..

And even better, I've just sent off the first module of my Dip.TESOL course. For those of you who are wondering what mad trip I am off on now, it's a diploma in teaching English to speakers of other languages, and very interesting it is too. It was what I wanted to do in the first place, but they wouldn't enrol me until I had the TEFL certificate. I hope to complete this one in about seven months, and then I really will have a go at jobs in France or Spain or even Poland...can't wait!

The drought is over

2010-03-14T10:01:00.001+01:00

I'm writing again...well, just a little. You know what they say, a thirsty man shouldn't drink too much at first!

Boats and bobs

2010-03-10T23:22:00.002+01:00

I often wonder what image people have in their minds when they read about our harbour here. It is a special place, but not just because of the community we have.

Rotterdam was blitzed during the war, meaning that the centre of the city lost nearly all of its traditional Dutch buildings. A few remain but mostly we are surrounded by soaring skyscrapers,radical design and the most modern of modern architecture you can find. Even so, our 'oude Haven' is colourful and quaint in its way and that IS because of the old ships.

Last week, we had another memorable visit from Invader Stu and the girlfriend, both of whom seem suitably charmed by our boaty world and regaled us with tales of their own adventures on Holland's higher seas. Then today, our neighbour from the little house in Westdorpe dropped by on his way back to the UK.

He was fascinated by it all, and really impressed by the juxtaposition of the very old as represented by the boats and the harbour, and the very new, staggeringly tall apartment blocks and offices that surround us.

We are so used to it, which is not to say we are immune to its charms, but I do think that sometimes we don't see it as others do.It has changed a lot since I've been here, and in my view not all for the better. Nevertheless, it is impressive and in many ways quite beautiful. Rotterdam has had a bad press, but Iwouldn't willingly move to either Amsterdam or Den Haag. Give me 'Rottingdam' any day of the week!

Trying to find my way back

2010-03-03T22:33:00.003+01:00

It's a strange feeling. Not having to leap out of bed on Wednesday and Thursday mornings to leave the harbour, Koos and Sindy for the whole day as I have been doing these past three months. I've been working every other day as well, but have always been home for part of the day. Just not these two days. The reason has been the annual business communications course that five other colleagues and myself have been giving to first year students at the university here.

What's been different this year is that I decided (my prerogative as coordinator) to do four groups, meaning two full eight hour teaching shifts with hardly any break in between. Enough to dash from one room to the next and get set up again. The breaks in the lessons were always busy too. Students asking questions, seeking advice and so on. Sometimes the whole day would pass and I'd realise I hadn't even had a cup of coffee since breakfast.

Did I enjoy it? No, not really. It would have been okay if I hadn't had any other work to do, but you know what it's like. People ask and you can't say no. The result was that weekends were non existent. I had to spend them marking assignments or assessing roleplays that I should have been able to do during the week - had I refused to take on that other work.

You're probably thinking so what? Why the fuss. And you're right, it was only for three months, but for some reason it's turned my world upside down and I'm having a job trying to find my balance again. My boat, house and garden were all dismissed from my mind, and now it's over I really need to think about them again. I haven't written a word in months, nor have I blogged or played music or written to friends and family. I still have quite a bit of work, but even so, there is the prospect of the odd free morning and, even better, free weekends. Will I know what to do with them, though?

I looked at my writing work in progress this evening, and had no clue where I was going to go with it. I'm sure my barge needs my attention, but I am not yet inclined you might say. As for the garden, I watched Sin go out and do her stuff last Sunday, and thought "I'll do it next week", only to feel glad that next week will probably bring rain and I can put it off again for another day.

I will get over this lassitude, won't I? At least I've used my blog to offload it...now I msut go and read some others. Well, it's a start isn't it....

Promises

2010-02-07T22:10:00.005+01:00

When I left Rotterdam to sneak off down to Zeeland on Friday, I promised Mo I would do a new blog post this weekend. I didn't have quite as much work this time as last weekend so that made it possible...so I thought, anyway. Well, it's still been pretty busy with some roleplays to assess, lessons to plan and of course, keeping up with my self-imposed determination to do at least one module of the TEFL course I am doing.

It's strange to think I've been teaching English as a foreign language for ten years but have never had that particular qualification - others yes, but not a TEFL. Anyhow, better late than never and it's good discipline for the higher diploma that I want to follow it up with.

However, I digress. We did sneak out for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, even though the weather wasn't exactly encouraging. It was very foggy and visibility was awful, but Koos courageously negotiated the country lanes till we found ourselves at the Westerschelde estuary. We could hardly see a thing, and in the swirling mists the harbour looked eerie with the boats sitting on the mudflats. The only sound was that of a big ship's foghorn booming mournfully into the void. I really loved it.

These photos don't really do the atmosphere justice, but hopefully they give some idea of what it was like - the loneliness and the emptiness. Wonderful.

Then we made our way back along the road that hugs the foot of the big sea dyke, past the memorial to show where the seas had breached the old dykes in 1953 that cost the lives of so many Zeelanders, and on to De Griete near Terneuzen. Here we stopped at a small country café/pub and had coffee and appel gebak (my favourite) before wending our way home again.

It wasn't a major excursion, but it was a memorable one. Did me good too.

Apologies

2010-01-23T23:02:00.003+01:00

For days now, I've come to my blog, thinking I might have the time to update it, but sadly I don't. Life is just a bit too hectic right now. It doesn't make me happy, and I've made a decision to ensure it doesn't happen again, but for now, it's necessary that I shut down, close off and wish you all the best till later. Tot ziens, à la prochaine, hasta la vista...xxx

The Dutch do it on Ice

2010-01-06T23:28:00.002+01:00

While the rest of Europe dives for cover and refuge from the snow, the Dutch gleefully take to the ice. I really love the joy with which all Nederlanders, great and small, relish this national sport. They positively rub their hands with anticipation waiting for the temperatures to drop. The ice has apparently to be 12cm's thick before it is considered safe enough for skating, and yesterday, the pronouncement all cloggies have been waiting for was made. So whoopee!! Off they went today to Henschoter lake, near Utrecht. The picture below was taken from this article where I found the story. I'm no skater myself, but I'm looking forward to watching some soon.

Sea changes for the New Year

2010-01-01T20:39:00.006+01:00

As has become our habit at new year, we went to the beach today. This time, we ventured further south - hopefully a portent of changes to come, because our first of January 2010 excursion took us to France instead of our Zeeuws coast. The photos above were taken at Brays Dunes near Dunkerque. It was breathtakingly cold, but a beautiful day and we revelled in the brisk walk along the sands and dunes. After this, we went to Bergues (see photos below), a beautiful town with medieval fortifications and a moat. The centre had clearly been badly damaged, probably in WW1, but much of it remains charming and untouched.

France draws and pulls at me. I like to think it has something to do with the French blood that fights for dominance in my English veins (my maternal grandfather was french). I always feel I've come home when I cross the border. Everything about the country seems (absurdly) more attractive than anywhere else I've been in Europe. This coming summer, I really hope we will make it to France by boat. I think it will probably be in the Hennie H, and if not, the Vereeniging, although the HH is more of a practical proposition given that it is more than halfway there already.

I am currently doing some studying, the end result being a higher diploma in teaching English as a foreign language; the reason being that in the coming years, I would like to try and find work in France. It was my dream when I came back to Europe and is my dream still. If I can just do it for a couple of years, then who knows, maybe we'll decide to stay and maybe we won't, but at least I'll have been there, done that and fulfilled the quest. Talking of resolutions and it being New Year....

Have any of you made any that you have a hope of achieving??

It was so cold I used my neck warmer as a hat...fetching isn't it??

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW! HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS

2010-01-01T00:33:00.002+01:00

Thanks to everyone who has followed me here over the past year. It's been a pleasure to share our watery world with you, as well as all the other tid bits that make up our lives in the flat lands. I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful and fulfilling 2010. Keep well, love from VallyP

Our snowy world this Christmas time

2009-12-21T16:36:00.003+01:00

Holland on the horizon

Kids doing what kids do in the snow in Westdorpe

Our Wandering Snail friends' boat, ice and snow bound in Lokeren Belgium.

The Marion Aagje makes it to Rotterdam

2009-12-16T10:44:00.005+01:00

Just a very quick post to bring you these pictures of Mo and Craig's little tjalk in its new home. There's been a story worth a saga about trying to get it in to the historic harbours here, and the ending is still unsure, but meanwhile, they have found a berth over the water from us. In fact, now I've seen it I think it's great!

Welcome to Rotterdam Marion Aagje. This is the area the little barge came from and the waterways it served. It is back home where it belongs.

Blogging down a bit

2009-12-14T13:32:00.003+01:00

Life has become a bit hectic of late, and I'm up to my ears in marking assignments for the uni courses I'm doing at the moment. This is making it difficult for me to maintain all my blogging activities, so I've made a choice.

Sadly, it means that this blog will be a tad quiet over the next few weeks, but I promise I will be back. I am, however, trying to keep my new story blog going with at least one post a week. I need some outlet after all!

I'm not really a big Facebooker...I just drop in, scroll down the home page, leave a few comments here and there, give certain things the thumbs up and throw in a mood statement now and then and that's it. To be honest, I've always preferred my blog, but FB is the place to find people on a regular basis these days, so I go with the flow.

Still, all things pass, and that includes the bad stuff, so I will be back here before too long..I'll keep you posted.....

Just one of those weeks

2009-12-05T23:54:00.004+01:00

This week's been a tad gruelling.

On Wednesday I taught for 8 straight hours; on Thursday it was 13 hours without a break; on Friday I dragged myself out of bed to prepare for a long afternoon session, which finished at 5. After arriving home Friday evening, Mo called me in distress. The gangplank had fallen off the Vereeniging and was hanging straight down in the water. No access to ship possible. Three hours later (or thereabouts) we had it fixed again.

But then walking along the quay, a young gentleman approached me and said "Excuse me, but are you VallyP?"

Well, suddenly the evening improved. It was none other than the famous Invader Stu, whose blog I have been reading and loving for a few years now. As he is best known by his cartoon appearance, I won't spoil the mystery and describe him - that is not unless he fails to deliver the book the girlfriend (who shall also remain nameless), and I were urging him to write before they finally disappeared into the mists at midnight last.

I have, however, threatened to reveal his identity and appearance by gradual stages if he doesn't compile a volume of his brilliant blog stories and cartoons. May I suggest you take a look at his site and let me know if you agree?..perhaps the force of greater numbers will also persuade him - that is if the fear of having the real Stu published for all the world to see doesn't do it first!

Seriously though, it was a great pleasure to meet another great blog friend and his very charming and lovely lady. We invited them into the Luxor, which was in a state of chaos as a result of the hectic week I'd had and the panic stations following the gangplank disaster, but they took it in their stride, and I'm hoping they'll be back for a proper evening of good food and plentiful South African red before too long.

The beginning of the new tale

2009-11-28T21:13:00.005+01:00

Sooo, I've started it. My new story has its first few hundred odd words, and I think I'm going to have some fun with this one.

The first few lines are:

The half of my car that was left looked perfectly natural propped against the wall. As if I could peer round the gate post and see the rest of it sticking out the other side. The snag was I knew this was all there was. I’d met Simon, my boyfriend, pushing the back half into the barn as I cycled into the yard.

If any of you want to follow its progress, you can find it here

Let me know what you think. I really value opinion and feedback, and by the way, this opening incident was something that really happened, although of course, I am fictionalising the people and the story in general.I haven't quite finished working out the plot, but I didn't with Arie either. A lot of it just evolved, so I'm hoping this one will too. It's great to be starting a new project!

How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics

2009-11-25T15:23:00.004+01:00

How do you like that for the name of my new book?

I've just written up the list of principal characters and certain events that will be included in the story.

Now I just need a good plot to hang all the events on. I'm still working on that one, so as soon as I've started, I'll create a new blog and let you know.

This feels good.....

Plans afoot

2009-11-22T22:15:00.003+01:00

Mo as we have got use to seeing her these days

There's been some encouraging news this weekend. Mo and Craig have finally got themselves a berth in a harbour in Rotterdam. Not in ours, for which I think they can be thankful given the political shenanigans, but in harbour across the river. It's quite a bit more expensive, but then they will just pay their money and get on with life. No restoration plans, no burdensome rules, just keep your ship neat, well painted and clean and no one will bother you. It sounds so attractive I'm even making an enquiry there myself!

The next move is bringing their ship down from Amsterdam, which is going to happen on the 5th of December. More about that later! What this all means in practice though, is that the prospect of moving back onto the Vereeniging is closer than expected...and I have plans....

Firstly, I want to re-do the 'roof' before moving back on. I was going to put a steel roof on, but that would mean dismantling the entire interior - again! I have therefore decided to use wood instead. Sheets of heavily sealed or painted plywood in fact - positioned under the hatch boards. This should result in making the top watertight, and give me the chance to dispense with the tarpaulin.

Then inside, I have some restructuring to do, although I'm not quite sure how it's going to work, as I need my office space back. What I have decided to do, though, is invest in an eco toilet. Everyone around me seems to be abandoning these, but there are some very sophisticated models available now. As I don't want to be restricted as to where I can go on account of having an environmentally unfriendly loo, it seems like a good time to make the investment.

So....exciting times ahead, not to mention the new book I am about to start. Which one do you think it should be? The sequel to Watery Ways or a novel based on my slightly loopy life in England's west country before I went to South Africa? The first will be easier, but the second, more challenging. I'm open to suggestions!

Just for a real hoot

2009-11-17T17:27:00.008+01:00

The text below is the English translation of a Dutch email I sent to someone at the Administration office here in our harbour. I've left out the names for obvious reasons, but I felt I had to publish it. The translation was done through Google and is absolutely hysterical. I haven't laughed so much in weeks.

Hope you find it amusing too! The email it was in response to was already in English and mentioned that the Board of the Museum had not received enough information from Maryssa's restoration plan to determine whether she could get a place in the harbour. I should explain that the words fireplace and chimney that keep cropping up have to do with the Schouw Comissie, (real meaning = inspection committee) who are the people responsible for evaluating the ships coming into the harbour. However schouw does also mean fireplace and apparently chimney too, leading to these very strange and highly amusing suggestions that I had a rapport with my chimney.. Read on....!

My daughter, Maryssa, the email below from mnr XXX received. Rxxx I do not know who wrote this email or who is responsible but I find it surprising for the following reasons:

1. Maryssa has a very detailed restoration plan in September of service with answers to most of the questions below. Regarding the questions about "swords" and the cockpit has she sought advice from the Commission uses Schouw so these questions are very confusing.

2. When the fireplace chimney committee did, they had not seen any records of her ship and last week Martin had no hair restoration plan is to fish. How is that possible if Maryssa these documents has been in service in September? Mnr XXXXX in September confirmed that everything he "in good order" and has received documents that were "impressive". Why now, after more than two months, the fireplace committee not see everything? This is clear from the questions below. Still a very confusing time.

3. When my ship put into the Old Port, I had a real rapport with advice for my chimney restoration plan. I paid nothing. Maryssa has paid € 150 but she has no report received and chimney should seek advice from other people? I find this more confusing Rxxx and very unprofessional. She said in the original application that she is serious about the restoration of the ship with a reference year of 1932 but she has also said that she needed advice from the chimney committee. Why are they getting these questions but gets no opinion?

It was not my intention for me to Rxxx in this case, but I find it strange that after all her work and after almost three months, it is clear that no one proposal has Maryssa good read and that the chimney commission so little information had received (as before and after the chimney). Also report that they had no fireplace.

It seems to me that the handling of this matter your personal attention, Rxxx. If the Port Museum to be more professional and people have to pay € 150 for an application, they expect more than this kind of treatment. Maryssa deserves the same opportunities as other people but I hope that not all the other applicants have had this experience.

Sorry for my Dutch, Rxxx. Chose (what it made of Koos) is not here as a translator so I hope you can understand.

Best regards

Valerie

Lost in translation

2009-11-13T14:46:00.003+01:00

Well, folks, it seems Lulu.com com can lose all sorts of things, even the correct language. Yesterday afternoon, I picked up a copy of the Skipper's Child and proudly handed it to Jodie. She opened it, looked at me in an only Jodie-knows-how-to quizzical fashion and asked "Since when did you write in Italian Mum?"

Puzzled? Yes, so was I....in fact, it turned out that I had someone else's book in my cover! I'm not sure what to make of it, but I'm sure there's something about copyright that comes into this, especially as if this Italian author has my book, which was not intended for distribution yet, then we could have a situation....I sent them these photos since they asked for proof (cheek of it!), and await their response....

Autumn chills

2009-11-03T21:19:00.004+01:00

Mo and Craig's Marion Aagje at its mooring in a nature conservation area near Amsterdam.
They can't wait to bring it to Rotterdam, where at least they'll be able to scrape and paint without worrying about noise, pollution and upsetting the old ducks (of the human variety) who watch them from their windows.

I don't really know what to write about this evening....feel I should write something as it's been a while since I updated my blog. I should be working on material for my classes too, but I'm a bit fed up with that now. In fact, i've got a real case of anti Autumn chill blues. The barge is warm and it's cosy inside, but it's really absolutely and horribly yuk outdoors. I love being outside so the rain, wind and looming dark clouds are really depressing, and I can't quite get the hang of the fact that summer's over.

Last weekend, we went down to Westdorpe, and even there I couldn't get inspired to do anything.

I know what I want to do...... I'd like to replace the other peeling panel on the Vereeniging, oil the wooden berghout or rubbing rail as I think it's called. I'd also like to do some more of the paintwork, insulate the engine room, oversee the installation of the startermotor on the engine....yes, well, you see? It all means working outside..grrrrrrr.

What I will do now is just add a couple of pics I've lifted off my phone again, and then get back to work. At least I can still do things that will help to earn the money I so want to spend on my ship....once this blessed rain has stopped!

Oh and yes, there's a thought! I could always start on my next book. the idea has been simmering for ages. Watch this space!!!

I just like these wind tubines. Sorry to all those who don't!

The big barges meet their match in thse monster transporters on the Westerschelde estuary near Antwerp.

Water taxis are wicked!

2009-10-25T22:15:00.005+01:00

Today was Mo's birthday, so of course we stayed in Rotterdam instead of heading south as is our wont. What to do on such a day, though? We thought of taking the Vereeniging out for a spuddle about, but the weather looked so unsettled this morning, and it was pretty breezy anyway, so we decided against it.

After collecting Mo and Craig from the Marion Aagje (their own ship) in Diemen, Jodie and Baz came to join us and that was when I had a brainwave. Why not all of us go to Dordrecht on the Fast Ferry and have tea? Well, after thinking of how long that would take, it got scaled down to taking the water taxi across the river to the Hotel New York. This of course is even more fun, because these small boats toss around on the river like corks, and the ride, although short, is brilliant.

The Hotel New York is also quite special because it's where the big cruisers used to leave for America (the old Amerika Line), and it still retains much of its old world decor and charm. This, then, is what we did, and the river gave us a grand crossing. It was very choppy so the taxi plunged in and out of the waves and the bows got well sprayed. Fortunately, being inside, we didn't get wet, but it was quite exciting all the same. The tea was also good and after stuffing ourselves to the gills, we worked off the cream cakes by walking back over the bridge and home to the harbour.

The day finished with supper and a great game whose name I can't remember, but it involves firstly describing, then acting out and finally giving one word to sum up the names of famous people which are written on small pieces of paper. I'm not normally much of a one for games, but this was really good, and quite a challenge too. It was something Mo came up with, which didn't surprise me as she's always enjoyed puzzles and puns, and I remember when she was small, we used to do endless quizzes in the car on long journeys.

The photos here are just a couple I took in the Water Taxi, but this little movie really shows what fun it was, despite the oh so cool attitude of the 'driver'!

Ready? Almost!

2009-10-24T23:49:00.005+02:00

Well, this is the temporary cover for The Skipper's Child. I'm having a copy printed at Lulu.com just to check it through, read it again and see if I want to have a go at some publishers.

As you can see, the name hasn't changed. I had quite a bit of feedback on Facebook, and the general concensus was that the title was just fine as it was. Who am I to argue then? I'd love to have some illustrations done and a pen and ink drawing on the cover, but that will have to wait. For now, I just want to read it like a proper book.

I've done a fair amount of editing since I finished the story, but sometimes, you just have to read something in print to know if you're going to be happy with it. I had four or five versions of my other two books before finally letting them out into the big wide world of Amazon and Bol. By that time I was heartily sick of them both, and it's only recently that I've been able to pick up either of them again. No doubt, Arie will suffer the same fate, but I hope the first time I receive a printed copy, it will feel good!

I'll keep you posted....

Florence and Lucca

2009-10-20T21:30:00.007+02:00

The Cathedral in Florence. Quite incrediblly ornate

The skyline of Florence from the Palazzo Pitti

Okay, so before I put Italy back in its box of sunshine and accept the fact that its autumn here in the Netherlands and distinctly chilly, I'll just post a few pics of Florence and Lucca.

I was quite overwhelmed by Florence with its phenomenal art and history. Every street seems to have some great church, museum, gallery, palazzo or historic piazza, and I spent three hours in just one of them. There is so much to see, you could spend a month there and not get round to everything. Maybe there's even too much altogether.

Two views of the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio

The day I went, there were wall-to-wall tourists because the museums and galleries were all free (for the weekend) - just my luck! It didn't help me though because I couldn't get in to the places I wanted to see at first and I ended up at the Palazzo Pitti, which is more of a walk from the centre, but worth every step. What a wealth of paintings and sculptures they had there! To see Titians, Del Sartos and Raphaels that I have only ever seen in books was quite amazing, and the Roman sculptures on display were..well..quite breathtaking.

The highlight, though, was going down a backstreet and into a beautiful church where three young musicians were practising. Maybe I've mentioned this before, but it was so lovely to listen to the organ, flute and clarinet of these three youngsters being played with so much love and joy in such heavenly (Yes, I mean it) surroundings.

The following day I went to Lucca, which is also very beautiful. Surrounded by high fortifications and with its narrow medieval streets leading to the old Roman amphitheatre, now a market place, it is a history lovers dream. The cathedral is magnificent as is the old baptistry with its archaeological ruins on display beneath the main aisles of the church. I thought of Maria when I went there!

When I arrived I had to buy a ticket to go in and see the ruins. I always head for archaeological sites when I know they are there as this was originally my career choice back in my student days. The ladies at the desk asked me where I'd come from, so I told them I'd come from Holland. Looking very crestfallen, they said they had information about the ruins, but only in German, French and English. Would English be alright for me? I answered yes, of course, with suitable seriousness and thanked them kindly before walking away chuckling. As it happened, it wasn't much use as the English was so incomprehensible, I couldn't follow the information easily at all, but it was kind of them to offer, wasn't it? Maybe they'll organise some Dutch leaflets for next year. I wonder what they'll be like...

Anyhow, I explored the rest of the town and liked it very much. It's a bit too touristy -again- for me, which is why in the end I preferred Pisa, but it's well worth a visit.

The medieval streets and Piazza's of Lucca are beautiful

One thing I should say about Italy is that the trains are fantastic - cheap, frequent and everything is in both Italian and English, including all the announcements. Given this, I'm still very surprised at how little English the Italians themselves speak.

One part of the old amphitheatre in Lucca

Well, I think I've done with the Italian blogs now...get back to reality again, VallyP. That Tuscan sun is now just a memory.

Livorno

2009-10-16T23:30:00.006+02:00

With my current taste for novels of a quirky and slightly odd flavour, I've just finished reading a great piece of nonsense fiction by New Zealand author Sarah Kate Lynch. It's called Eating with the Angels and much of it is set in Venice. It's written with tremendous flare, considerable wackiness and quite a passion for Italian food, so of course it reminded me of my own recent visit to that wonderful country.

I have just looked through the photos I published of Pisa, and see I never added the other places I visited. Seeing the sea was mandatory on this trip, so one afternoon, I took myself off to Livorno. A nice enough town, and much larger than Pisa, it exists mainly for its port, which is the third largest in Italy - so I'm told.

Its best feature is its harbour, and what is even better is that the river through the town is also used for mooring thousands of small cruisers, fishing boats and even just rowing boats. I never think of Italians as being great boaters themselves. Having romantic trips in gondolas is one thing, but steering themselves around instead of chowing scrummy delicacies on a sun drenched terrace does not seem to me to tie in with the Italian thing. I must be wrong though. There were throngs of them (boats, I mean, not Italians). I must admit, however, they (the boats again) were all in the harbours and NOT out on the water, so on this occasion, I guess the terraces won!

Now the autumn rain is soaking us every time we set foot outside, these photos help me to remember those golden days. I hope they bring a little sunshine to you too - if you should need it, that is.

Finally No, almost, finished

2009-10-03T13:10:00.004+02:00

A red letter day today! I've finally finished writing the Skipper's Child story!

Now I have to print it and edit it, prune it here and flesh it out there, give it to my daughters to read and edit (my best and worse critics), and then hopefully print off a few copies before Christmas. I will also then start sending it to a few publishers to see if I can get any positive response.

There is one point I need help with, though. I want a different title. The Skipper's Child was just a working title, so if anyone would like to help me by suggesting one, I'd be very grateful indeed!

Many many thanks to String, Anne Marie, Koos and Hans, who have all been the inspiration that has kept me going with this tale. Also, to those readers who have had to leave it in its progress - probably because it's taken me so long to write it, they've all found other priorities along the way! Thanks anyway to Margie (where are you?) CM and to Mo and Jo who have given me lots of comments and great support as well.

More about Pisa

2009-10-01T00:01:00.004+02:00

As promised here is the link to a set of photos of Pisa.

I have to say the town was quite a surprise for me. It's much smaller than I expected, and while it has more of the atmosphere of real Italy than Florence, it also reminded me quite forcibly of Holland. This was mainly because I found myself in serious danger of being mown down by speeding students on bicycles. Amazing! They were everywhere (the bikes, that is) from packs and racks of tens and twenties to abandoned solitary frames with all but the baskets stripped off them. As often as not, these were being used as substitutes for rubbish bins as well.

The students were everywhere too, giving the town a vibrancy and life that I found lacking in Florence, Livorno and Lucca. Pisa's larger neighbours focus so much on tourism that they seem to have lost their soul. I was therefore very happy to spend some extra time in this place of the absurdly leaning tower.

It is everything I associate with Italy - a bit scruffy, a bit smelly, but so incredibly charming with its golden building, lazy old river and secret alleyways. There are small markets in tatty piazzas; nearly every street has a university faculty housed in it somewhere, and the paint seems unable to stay on the walls of the buildings. I really loved it.

My main impressions were of clattering noise, sparrows in every tree, golden light, early dusks, pigeons on every ledge (with whatever was below them suitably soiled), the smells of heat and the feeling of being somewhere very old and experienced. If I had the chance to live somewhere in Italy, Pisa would definitely be high on the wish list.

A slice of Pisa

2009-09-29T00:36:00.005+02:00

Here's just a small taste of where I've been for the last few days, courtesy of Mo and Craig. I'll blog more about it tomorrow, but the photos below were taken yesterday morning in Pisa, a town I've fallen in love with. Since last Thursday, I've also been to Livorno, Florence and Lucca, but Pisa remains my favourite. When I've sorted out the photos and all the notes I wrote, I'll do a proper job, but as you can see, the sun shone hot and golden on this lovely town.

Piazza dei Cavaleiri. The view that most tourists don't take

They hardly have posters for rock, rave of pop concerts in Pisa. These are all about classical or choral music concerts, or cultural courses, of courso

Maybe the best of all my photos this trip, the lovely smooth and peaceful Arno river that runs through the city. No boats, no activity, just the quiet progress of an ancient waterway set against a backdrop of Tuscan mountains.

The quest is over

2009-09-22T08:20:00.005+02:00

I've found it! At last! And of course, you are all asking what this great discovery might be. In truth it probably doesn't sound very exciting, but to me it's the answer - well almost - to a question that's been nagging at me ever since I came to the Netherlands.

The question is this: how does the Dutch word gezellig translate into English?

It's a question that many of us English imports ponder as it's such a great word, and it covers so many situations. You can be gezellig with your friends, or have a gezellig house. You can also find the atmosphere somewhere very gezellig, and gezelligheid is something to aim for when creating urban dwellings and their environs.

You've probably got the idea by now, yes? Well, no. We've tried all sorts of possible adjectives to describe the obviously pleasant feelings attached to being gezellig.

For example, there's 'cozy', but tell your corporate friends their conference is cozy...hmmm, I don't think so. On the other hand, your house can be cozy, yes, but a wild and wonderful party? Perhaps not.

Well what about atmospheric? The same applies.."I went to such an atmsopheric party last week...". Not quite hey? Then there are others, such as friendly, charming, comfortable etc but none of them works in every situation.

Then last night, I found the truth. I thought so, anyway. In a marvellous moment of sheer enlightenment. I was teaching a class of business students, and at the end of the lesson one of them said he'd heard this word used last week and wondered what it meant. Scratching through his note book, he carefully read out the word 'conviviality'. I looked at him, I thought for a moment and then I smiled the smile of one who has found the meaning of life itself.

"Willem," I said "it means gezelligheid, and when you find yourself in convivial company, that's the same as finding it gezellig."
"Aaah," he said, sharing the sweetness of the moment. "I've often wondered what word to use for gezellig."

Now, though, I'm sitting here, imagining Willem's future with his newly acquired language skill and insight. Our Willem will be going to people's houses, and looking around admiringly, he will say "hmmm, very convivial, what!"

Okay, I agree. It does sound a bit pompous doesn't it? It may well be true,of course, but not really what you'd say to your bosom buddies and life long friends, and after all, can a room itself be.....?

Maybe the quest isn't quite over yet.

Does anyone out there know the informal word for convivial?